CVE-2020-29569

Published: 15 December 2020

An issue was discovered in the Linux kernel through 5.10.1, as used with Xen through 4.14.x. The Linux kernel PV block backend expects the kernel thread handler to reset ring->xenblkd to NULL when stopped. However, the handler may not have time to run if the frontend quickly toggles between the states connect and disconnect. As a consequence, the block backend may re-use a pointer after it was freed. A misbehaving guest can trigger a dom0 crash by continuously connecting / disconnecting a block frontend. Privilege escalation and information leaks cannot be ruled out. This only affects systems with a Linux blkback.

From the Ubuntu Security Team

Olivier Benjamin and Pawel Wieczorkiewicz discovered a race condition the Xen paravirt block backend in the Linux kernel, leading to a use-after-free vulnerability. An attacker in a guest VM could use this to cause a denial of service in the host OS.

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