CVE-2021-28692

HIGH

Xen >=3.2.0 - Improper Privilege Management in IOMMU Timeout Handling

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Description

inappropriate x86 IOMMU timeout detection / handling IOMMUs process commands issued to them in parallel with the operation of the CPU(s) issuing such commands. In the current implementation in Xen, asynchronous notification of the completion of such commands is not used. Instead, the issuing CPU spin-waits for the completion of the most recently issued command(s). Some of these waiting loops try to apply a timeout to fail overly-slow commands. The course of action upon a perceived timeout actually being detected is inappropriate: - on Intel hardware guests which did not originally cause the timeout may be marked as crashed, - on AMD hardware higher layer callers would not be notified of the issue, making them continue as if the IOMMU operation succeeded.

References (2)

Core 2
Core References
Vendor Advisory x_refsource_misc
https://xenbits.xenproject.org/xsa/advisory-373.txt
Mitigation, Third Party Advisory vendor-advisory x_refsource_gentoo
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202107-30

Scores

CVSS v3 7.1
EPSS 0.0004
EPSS Percentile 10.8%
Attack Vector LOCAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H

Details

CWE
CWE-269
Status published
Products (1)
xen/xen 3.2.0
Published Jun 30, 2021
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026