qsb-063-2020.txt

             ---===[ Qubes Security Bulletin 063 ]===---

                             2020-12-15


           Multiple Xen issues (XSA-115, XSA-325, XSA-350)


User action required
=====================

Users must install the following specific packages in order to address
the issues discussed in this bulletin:

  For Qubes 4.0:
  - Xen packages, version 4.8.5-28
  - Linux kernel packages, versions 5.9.14-1, 5.4.83-1, 4.19.163-1

  For Qubes 4.1:
  - Xen packages, version 4.14.0-9
  - Linux kernel packages, versions 5.9.14-1, 5.4.83-1, 4.19.163-1

The packages are to be installed in dom0 via the Qube Manager or via
the qubes-dom0-update command as follows:

  For updates from the stable repository (not immediately available):
  $ sudo qubes-dom0-update

  For updates from the security-testing repository:
  $ sudo qubes-dom0-update --enablerepo=qubes-dom0-security-testing

A system restart will be required afterwards.

These packages will migrate from the security-testing repository to the
current (stable) repository over the next two weeks after being tested
by the community.

If you use Anti Evil Maid, you will need to reseal your secret
passphrase to new PCR values, as PCR18+19 will change due to the new
Xen binaries.


Summary
========

On 2020-12-15, the Xen Security Team published the following Xen
Security Advisories (XSAs):

XSA-115 [1] "xenstore watch notifications lacking permission checks"
| Neither xenstore implementation does any permissions checks when
| reporting a xenstore watch event.
| 
| A guest administrator can watch the root xenstored node, which will
| cause notifications for every created, modified and deleted key.
| 
| A guest administrator can also use the special watches, which will
| cause a notification every time a domain is created and destroyed.
| 
| Data may include:
|  - number, type and domids of other VMs
|  - existence and domids of driver domains
|  - numbers of virtual interfaces, block devices, vcpus
|  - existence of virtual framebuffers and their backend style (eg,
|    existence of VNC service)
|  - Xen VM UUIDs for other domains
|  - timing information about domain creation and device setup
|  - some hints at the backend provisioning of VMs and their devices
| 
| The watch events do not contain values stored in xenstore, only key
| names.

XSA-325 [2] "Xenstore: guests can disturb domain cleanup"
| Xenstored and guests communicate via a shared memory page using a
| specific protocol. When a guest violates this protocol, xenstored will
| drop the connection to that guest.
| 
| Unfortunately this is done by just removing the guest from xenstored's
| internal management, resulting in the same actions as if the guest had
| been destroyed, including sending an @releaseDomain event.
| 
| @releaseDomain events do not say guest has been removed.  All watchers
| of this event must look at the states of all guests to find the guest
| which has been removed.  When an @releaseDomain is generated due to
| domain xenstored protocol violation, As the guest is still running, so
| the watchers will not react.
| 
| Later, when the guest is actually destroyed, xenstored will no longer
| have it stored in its internal data base, so no further @releaseDomain
| event will be sent. This can lead to a zombie domain; memory mappings
| of that guest's memory will not be removed, due to the missing
| event. This zombie domain will be cleaned up only after another domain
| is destroyed, as that will trigger another @releaseDomain event.
| 
| If the device model of the guest which violated the Xenstore protocol
| is running in a stub-domain, a use-after-free case could happen in
| xenstored, after having removed the guest from its internal data base,
| possibly resulting in a crash of xenstored.

XSA-350 [3] "Use after free triggered by block frontend in Linux blkback"
| 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 toggle between the states
| connect and disconnect.
| 
| As a consequence, the block backend may re-use a pointer after it was
| freed.


Impact
=======

XSA-115, as described by Xen Security Team:
| A guest administrator can observe non-sensitive domain and device
| lifecycle events relating to other guests.  This information allows
| some insight into overall system configuration (including number of
| general nature of other guests), and configuration of other guests
| (including number and general nature of other guests' devices).  This
| information might be commercially interesting or might make other
| attacks easier.
| 
| There is not believed to be exposure of sensitive data.  Specifically,
| there is no exposure of: VNC passwords; port numbers; pathnames in host
| and guest filesystems; cryptopgraphic keys; or within-guest data.

XSA-325:
This issue allows a compromised domain to delay resource cleanup,
including disposing DisposableVMs. The delay will be at most until
another domain shutdown. If an HVM domain (like sys-net or sys-usb)
triggers it, it may cause a use-after-free issue in the xenstored
daemon. It may cause the daemon to crash (preventing most further
operations in the system). Beyond DoS, it is unlikely that this
vulnerability could be exploited to compromise the system, but we
cannot completely rule out the possibility.

XSA-350, as described by Xen Security Team:
| A misbehaving guest can trigger a dom0 crash by continuously
| connecting / disconnecting a block frontend. Privileged escalation and
| information leak cannot be ruled out.


Credits
========

See the original Xen Security Advisories.


References
===========

[1] https://xenbits.xen.org/xsa/advisory-115.html
[2] https://xenbits.xen.org/xsa/advisory-325.html
[3] https://xenbits.xen.org/xsa/advisory-350.html

--
The Qubes Security Team
https://www.qubes-os.org/security/