Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2023-46835

medium Nessus Plugin ID 226066

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Synopsis

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed with a vulnerability that the vendor indicates will not be patched.

Description

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

- The current setup of the quarantine page tables assumes that the quarantine domain (dom_io) has been initialized with an address width of DEFAULT_DOMAIN_ADDRESS_WIDTH (48) and hence 4 page table levels.
However dom_io being a PV domain gets the AMD-Vi IOMMU page tables levels based on the maximum (hot pluggable) RAM address, and hence on systems with no RAM above the 512GB mark only 3 page-table levels are configured in the IOMMU. On systems without RAM above the 512GB boundary amd_iommu_quarantine_init() will setup page tables for the scratch page with 4 levels, while the IOMMU will be configured to use 3 levels only, resulting in the last page table directory (PDE) effectively becoming a page table entry (PTE), and hence a device in quarantine mode gaining write access to the page destined to be a PDE. Due to this page table level mismatch, the sink page the device gets read/write access to is no longer cleared between device assignment, possibly leading to data leaks. (CVE-2023-46835)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

Solution

There is no known solution at this time.

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 226066

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2023_46835.nasl

Version: 1.2

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 3/5/2025

Updated: 8/27/2025

Supported Sensors: Agentless Assessment, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Frictionless Assessment AWS, Frictionless Assessment Azure, Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Low

Score: 3.6

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5

Temporal Score: 3.7

Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:M/Au:S/C:N/I:P/A:C

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2023-46835

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5.5

Temporal Score: 4.8

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:11.0, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:16.04:-:lts, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:22.04:-:lts, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:24.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:xen, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:25.04, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:18.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:xen, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:20.04:-:lts

Required KB Items: Host/OS/identifier, Host/cpu, Host/local_checks_enabled, global_settings/vendor_unpatched

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Vulnerability Publication Date: 11/15/2023

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2023-46835

Detections

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