CVE-2018-15468
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.11.x. The DEBUGCTL MSR contains several debugging features, some of which virtualise cleanly, but…
- 6.0MediumCVSS base score
- 0.34%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 73% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.11.x. The DEBUGCTL MSR contains several debugging features, some of which virtualise cleanly, but some do not. In particular, Branch Trace Store is not virtualised by the processor, and software has to be careful to configure it suitably not to lock up the core. As a result, it must only be available to fully trusted guests. Unfortunately, in the case that vPMU is disabled, all value checking was skipped, allowing the guest to choose any MSR_DEBUGCTL setting it likes. A malicious or buggy guest administrator (on Intel x86 HVM or PVH) can lock up the entire host, causing a Denial of Service.
Timeline
ID reserved
By mitre
Published
- 6 years later
· 6 years later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.0 | Medium6.0 | CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.34% · top 73% of all CVEs (9 Nov 2026)
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Medium 6.0.
Affected products
n/a
- affected n/a
References
2
- http://xenbits.xen.org/xsa/advisory-269.html (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
- GLSA-201810-06 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_GENTOOx_transferred
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2018-7346 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2018-15468)Record last updated .