CVE-2014-3690 (published 2014-11-10T11:55Z)

arch/x86/kvm/vmx.c in the KVM subsystem in the Linux kernel before 3.17.2 on Intel processors does not ensure that the value in the CR4 control register remains the same after a VM entry, which allows host OS users to kill arbitrary processes or cause a denial of service (system disruption) by leveraging /dev/kvm access, as demonstrated by PR_SET_TSC prctl calls within a modified copy of QEMU.

Severity: MEDIUM
CVSS v2 base score: 4.9 (AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C)
CVSS v3 base score: 5.5, MEDIUM (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)

Weakness information:
cwe_id: CWE-400
cwe_name: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
description: The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource, thereby enabling an actor to influence the amount of resources consumed, eventually leading to the exhaustion of available resources.
extended_description: 
            Limited resources include memory, file system storage, database connection pool entries, and CPU. If an attacker can trigger the allocation of these limited resources, but the number or size of the resources is not controlled, then the attacker could cause a denial of service that consumes all available resources. This would prevent valid users from accessing the product, and it could potentially have an impact on the surrounding environment. For example, a memory exhaustion attack against an application could slow down the application as well as its host operating system.
            There are at least three distinct scenarios which can commonly lead to resource exhaustion:
               
                  Lack of throttling for the number of allocated resources
                  Losing all references to a resource before reaching the shutdown stage
                  Not closing/returning a resource after processing
               
            Resource exhaustion problems are often result due to an incorrect implementation of the following situations:
               
                  Error conditions and other exceptional circumstances.
                  Confusion over which part of the program is responsible for releasing the resource.
               
         
         

Fix information:
repo_url: https://github.com/torvalds/linux
commit_details: repo_url: https://github.com/torvalds/linux
author: Andy Lutomirski
author_date: 2014-10-08 09:02:13-07:00
msg: x86,kvm,vmx: Preserve CR4 across VM entry

CR4 isn't constant; at least the TSD and PCE bits can vary.

TBH, treating CR0 and CR3 as constant scares me a bit, too, but it looks
like it's correct.

This adds a branch and a read from cr4 to each vm entry.  Because it is
extremely likely that consecutive entries into the same vcpu will have
the same host cr4 value, this fixes up the vmcs instead of restoring cr4
after the fact.  A subsequent patch will add a kernel-wide cr4 shadow,
reducing the overhead in the common case to just two memory reads and a
branch.

Signed-off-by: Andy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net>
Acked-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Cc: Petr Matousek <pmatouse@redhat.com>
Cc: Gleb Natapov <gleb@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
repository: repo_url: https://github.com/torvalds/linux
repo_name: torvalds/linux
description: Linux kernel source tree
repo_language: C
owner: torvalds
file_changes: filename: vmx.c
change_type: ModificationType.MODIFY
diff: @@ -472,6 +472,7 @@ struct vcpu_vmx {
 		int           gs_ldt_reload_needed;
 		int           fs_reload_needed;
 		u64           msr_host_bndcfgs;
+		unsigned long vmcs_host_cr4;	/* May not match real cr4 */
 	} host_state;
 	struct {
 		int vm86_active;
@@ -4267,11 +4268,16 @@ static void vmx_set_constant_host_state(struct vcpu_vmx *vmx)
 	u32 low32, high32;
 	unsigned long tmpl;
 	struct desc_ptr dt;
+	unsigned long cr4;
 
 	vmcs_writel(HOST_CR0, read_cr0() & ~X86_CR0_TS);  /* 22.2.3 */
-	vmcs_writel(HOST_CR4, read_cr4());  /* 22.2.3, 22.2.5 */
 	vmcs_writel(HOST_CR3, read_cr3());  /* 22.2.3  FIXME: shadow tables */
 
+	/* Save the most likely value for this task's CR4 in the VMCS. */
+	cr4 = read_cr4();
+	vmcs_writel(HOST_CR4, cr4);			/* 22.2.3, 22.2.5 */
+	vmx->host_state.vmcs_host_cr4 = cr4;
+
 	vmcs_write16(HOST_CS_SELECTOR, __KERNEL_CS);  /* 22.2.4 */
 #ifdef CONFIG_X86_64
 	/*
@@ -7514,7 +7520,7 @@ static void atomic_switch_perf_msrs(struct vcpu_vmx *vmx)
 static void __noclone vmx_vcpu_run(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu)
 {
 	struct vcpu_vmx *vmx = to_vmx(vcpu);
-	unsigned long debugctlmsr;
+	unsigned long debugctlmsr, cr4;
 
 	/* Record the guest's net vcpu time for enforced NMI injections. */
 	if (unlikely(!cpu_has_virtual_nmis() && vmx->soft_vnmi_blocked))
@@ -7540,6 +7546,12 @@ static void __noclone vmx_vcpu_run(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu)
 	if (test_bit(VCPU_REGS_RIP, (unsigned long *)&vcpu->arch.regs_dirty))
 		vmcs_writel(GUEST_RIP, vcpu->arch.regs[VCPU_REGS_RIP]);
 
+	cr4 = read_cr4();
+	if (unlikely(cr4 != vmx->host_state.vmcs_host_cr4)) {
+		vmcs_writel(HOST_CR4, cr4);
+		vmx->host_state.vmcs_host_cr4 = cr4;
+	}
+
 	/* When single-stepping over STI and MOV SS, we must clear the
 	 * corresponding interruptibility bits in the guest state. Otherwise
 	 * vmentry fails as it then expects bit 14 (BS) in pending debug

programming_language: C