FreeBSD VuXML: Documenting security issues in FreeBSD and the FreeBSD Ports Collection

xen-kernel -- guest 32-bit ELF symbol table load leaking host data

Affected packages
4.7 <= xen-kernel < 4.7.1

Details

VuXML ID 5555120d-ba4d-11e6-ae1b-002590263bf5
Discovery 2016-11-22
Entry 2016-12-04

The Xen Project reports:

Along with their main kernel binary, unprivileged guests may arrange to have their Xen environment load (kernel) symbol tables for their use. The ELF image metadata created for this purpose has a few unused bytes when the symbol table binary is in 32-bit ELF format. These unused bytes were not properly cleared during symbol table loading.

A malicious unprivileged guest may be able to obtain sensitive information from the host.

The information leak is small and not under the control of the guest, so effectively exploiting this vulnerability is probably difficult.

References

CVE Name CVE-2016-9384
FreeBSD PR ports/214936
URL https://xenbits.xen.org/xsa/advisory-194.html