MEDIUM
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.14.x. There are missing memory barriers when accessing/allocating an event channel. Event channels control structures can be accessed lockless as long as the port is considered to be valid. Such a sequence is missing an appropriate memory barrier (e.g., smp_*mb()) to prevent both the compiler and CPU from re-ordering access. A malicious guest may be able to cause a hypervisor crash resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS). Information leak and privilege escalation cannot be excluded. Systems running all versions of Xen are affected. Whether a system is vulnerable will depend on the CPU and compiler used to build Xen. For all systems, the presence and the scope of the vulnerability depend on the precise re-ordering performed by the compiler used to build Xen. We have not been able to survey compilers; consequently we cannot say which compiler(s) might produce vulnerable code (with which code generation options). GCC documentation clearly suggests that re-ordering is possible. Arm systems will also be vulnerable if the CPU is able to re-order memory access. Please consult your CPU vendor. x86 systems are only vulnerable if a compiler performs re-ordering.
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-10/msg00008.html
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202011-06
Source: MITRE
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-11-11
Type: CWE-401
Base Score: 4.6
Vector: AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P
Impact Score: 6.4
Exploitability Score: 3.9
Severity: MEDIUM
Base Score: 7.8
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Impact Score: 5.9
Exploitability Score: 1.8
Severity: HIGH