The hypervisor contains code to accelerate VGA memory accesses for HVM
guests, when the (virtual) VGA is in "standard" mode. Locking involved
there has an unusual discipline, leaving a lock acquired past the
return from the function that acquired it. This behavior results in a
problem when emulating an instruction with two memory accesses, both of
which touch VGA memory (plus some further constraints which aren't
relevant here). When emulating the 2nd access, the lock that is already
being held would be attempted to be re-acquired, resulting in a
deadlock.

This deadlock was already found when the code was first introduced, but
was analysed incorrectly and the fix was incomplete. Analysis in light
of the new finding cannot find a way to make the existing locking
discipline work.

In staging, this logic has all been removed because it was discovered
to be accidentally disabled since Xen 4.7. Therefore, we are fixing the
locking problem by backporting the removal of most of the feature. Note
that even with the feature disabled, the lock would still be acquired
for any accesses to the VGA MMIO region.
Advisories
Source ID Title
Debian DSA Debian DSA DSA-5836-1 xen security update
Fixes

Solution

No solution given by the vendor.


Workaround

Running only PV or PVH guests will avoid this vulnerability.

History

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 22:45:00 +0900

Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics epss

{'score': 0.00041}

epss

{'score': 0.00042}


Tue, 15 Jul 2025 22:45:00 +0900

Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics epss

{'score': 0.00036}

epss

{'score': 0.00041}


Mon, 14 Jul 2025 22:45:00 +0900

Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics epss

{'score': 0.00044}

epss

{'score': 0.00036}


Wed, 21 May 2025 01:45:00 +0900

Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Xen
Xen xen
CPEs cpe:2.3:o:xen:xen:*:*:*:*:*:*:x86:*
Vendors & Products Xen
Xen xen

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 04:15:00 +0900

Type Values Removed Values Added
Weaknesses CWE-667
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 6.5, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N'}

ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'no', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}


Thu, 19 Dec 2024 21:45:00 +0900


Thu, 19 Dec 2024 21:15:00 +0900

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description The hypervisor contains code to accelerate VGA memory accesses for HVM guests, when the (virtual) VGA is in "standard" mode. Locking involved there has an unusual discipline, leaving a lock acquired past the return from the function that acquired it. This behavior results in a problem when emulating an instruction with two memory accesses, both of which touch VGA memory (plus some further constraints which aren't relevant here). When emulating the 2nd access, the lock that is already being held would be attempted to be re-acquired, resulting in a deadlock. This deadlock was already found when the code was first introduced, but was analysed incorrectly and the fix was incomplete. Analysis in light of the new finding cannot find a way to make the existing locking discipline work. In staging, this logic has all been removed because it was discovered to be accidentally disabled since Xen 4.7. Therefore, we are fixing the locking problem by backporting the removal of most of the feature. Note that even with the feature disabled, the lock would still be acquired for any accesses to the VGA MMIO region.
Title Deadlock in x86 HVM standard VGA handling
References

Projects

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cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: XEN

Published:

Updated: 2024-12-31T19:01:43.510Z

Reserved: 2024-09-09T14:43:11.826Z

Link: CVE-2024-45818

cve-icon Vulnrichment

Updated: 2024-12-19T12:04:41.161Z

cve-icon NVD

Status : Analyzed

Published: 2024-12-19T12:15:16.540

Modified: 2025-05-20T16:28:07.217

Link: CVE-2024-45818

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

No data.

Weaknesses