UBUNTU-CVE-2020-8834

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    UBUNTU-CVE-2020-8834

    Published: 6 Apr 2020Last Modified: 5 Oct 2026
    Upstream:
    Aliases:

    Summary:

    Details: KVM in the Linux kernel on Power8 processors has a conflicting use of HSTATE_HOST_R1 to store r1 state in kvmppc_hv_entry plus in kvmppc_{save,restore}_tm, leading to a stack corruption. Because of this, an attacker with the ability run code in kernel space of a guest VM can cause the host kernel to panic. There were two commits that, according to the reporter, introduced the vulnerability: f024ee098476 ("KVM: PPC: Book3S HV: Pull out TM state save/restore into separate procedures") 87a11bb6a7f7 ("KVM: PPC: Book3S HV: Work around XER[SO] bug in fake suspend mode") The former landed in 4.8, the latter in 4.17. This was fixed without realizing the impact in 4.18 with the following three commits, though it's believed the first is the only strictly necessary commit: 6f597c6b63b6 ("KVM: PPC: Book3S PR: Add guest MSR parameter for kvmppc_save_tm()/kvmppc_restore_tm()") 7b0e827c6970 ("KVM: PPC: Book3S HV: Factor fake-suspend handling out of kvmppc_save/restore_tm") 009c872a8bc4 ("KVM: PPC: Book3S PR: Move kvmppc_save_tm/kvmppc_restore_tm to separate file")

    Affected packages

    Package

    Name: linux-hwe

    Purl: pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-hwe?arch=source&distro=xenial

    Affected ranges

    Type: ECOSYSTEM

    Events:

    Introduced- 0
    Fixed -4.15.0-96.97~16.04.1

    Affected versions

    4.8.0-36.36~16.04.1
    4.8.0-39.42~16.04.1
    4.8.0-41.44~16.04.1
    4.8.0-42.45~16.04.1
    4.8.0-44.47~16.04.1
    4.8.0-45.48~16.04.1
    4.8.0-46.49~16.04.1
    4.8.0-49.52~16.04.1
    4.8.0-51.54~16.04.1
    4.8.0-52.55~16.04.1
    4.8.0-53.56~16.04.1
    4.8.0-54.57~16.04.1
    4.8.0-56.61~16.04.1
    4.8.0-58.63~16.04.1

    Common Vulnerability Scoring System

    Attack Vector
    Network
    Adjacent
    Local
    Physical
    Privileges Required
    None
    Low
    High
    User Interaction
    None
    Required
    Scope
    Unchanged
    Changed
    Confidentiality
    None
    Low
    High
    Integrity
    None
    Low
    High
    Availability
    None
    Low
    High