CVE-2020-25596
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.14.x. x86 PV guest kernels can experience denial of service via SYSENTER. The SYSENTER…
- 5.5MediumCVSS base score
- 0.51%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 56% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.14.x. x86 PV guest kernels can experience denial of service via SYSENTER. The SYSENTER instruction leaves various state sanitization activities to software. One of Xen's sanitization paths injects a #GP fault, and incorrectly delivers it twice to the guest. This causes the guest kernel to observe a kernel-privilege #GP fault (typically fatal) rather than a user-privilege #GP fault (usually converted into SIGSEGV/etc.). Malicious or buggy userspace can crash the guest kernel, resulting in a VM Denial of Service. All versions of Xen from 3.2 onwards are vulnerable. Only x86 systems are vulnerable. ARM platforms are not vulnerable. Only x86 systems that support the SYSENTER instruction in 64bit mode are vulnerable. This is believed to be Intel, Centaur, and Shanghai CPUs. AMD and Hygon CPUs are not believed to be vulnerable. Only x86 PV guests can exploit the vulnerability. x86 PVH / HVM guests cannot exploit the vulnerability.
Timeline
ID reserved
By mitre
- 7 days later
· 7 days later
Published
- 4 years later
· 4 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 | 3.1 | Medium5.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.51% · top 56% of all CVEs (11 Nov 2026)
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Medium 5.5.
Affected products
n/a
- affected n/a
References
References7
- https://xenbits.xen.org/xsa/advisory-339.html (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
- FEDORA-2020-306b84fd07 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_FEDORAx_transferred
- FEDORA-2020-f668e579be (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_FEDORAx_transferred
- DSA-4769 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_DEBIANx_transferred
- openSUSE-SU-2020:1608 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_SUSEx_transferred
- FEDORA-2020-d46fe34349 (opens in a new tab)vendor-advisoryx_refsource_FEDORAx_transferred
- GLSA-202011-06 (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-2020-18275 (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-2020-25596)Record last updated .