CVE-2016-9588 (published 2016-12-28T07:59Z)

arch/x86/kvm/vmx.c in the Linux kernel through 4.9 mismanages the #BP and #OF exceptions, which allows guest OS users to cause a denial of service (guest OS crash) by declining to handle an exception thrown by an L2 guest.

Severity: LOW
CVSS v2 base score: 2.1 (AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P)
CVSS v3 base score: 5.5, MEDIUM (CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)

Weakness information:
cwe_id: CWE-388
cwe_name: 7PK - Errors
description: This category represents one of the phyla in the Seven Pernicious Kingdoms vulnerability classification. It includes weaknesses that occur when an application does not properly handle errors that occur during processing. According to the authors of the Seven Pernicious Kingdoms, "Errors and error handling represent a class of API. Errors related to error handling are so common that they deserve a special kingdom of their own. As with 'API Abuse,' there are two ways to introduce an error-related security vulnerability: the most common one is handling errors poorly (or not at all). The second is producing errors that either give out too much information (to possible attackers) or are difficult to handle."

Fix information:
repo_url: https://github.com/torvalds/linux
commit_details: repo_url: https://github.com/torvalds/linux
author: Jim Mattson
author_date: 2016-12-12 11:01:37-08:00
msg: kvm: nVMX: Allow L1 to intercept software exceptions (#BP and #OF)

When L2 exits to L0 due to "exception or NMI", software exceptions
(#BP and #OF) for which L1 has requested an intercept should be
handled by L1 rather than L0. Previously, only hardware exceptions
were forwarded to L1.

Signed-off-by: Jim Mattson <jmattson@google.com>
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
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: @@ -1389,10 +1389,10 @@ static inline bool nested_cpu_has_posted_intr(struct vmcs12 *vmcs12)
 	return vmcs12->pin_based_vm_exec_control & PIN_BASED_POSTED_INTR;
 }
 
-static inline bool is_exception(u32 intr_info)
+static inline bool is_nmi(u32 intr_info)
 {
 	return (intr_info & (INTR_INFO_INTR_TYPE_MASK | INTR_INFO_VALID_MASK))
-		== (INTR_TYPE_HARD_EXCEPTION | INTR_INFO_VALID_MASK);
+		== (INTR_TYPE_NMI_INTR | INTR_INFO_VALID_MASK);
 }
 
 static void nested_vmx_vmexit(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu, u32 exit_reason,
@@ -5728,7 +5728,7 @@ static int handle_exception(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu)
 	if (is_machine_check(intr_info))
 		return handle_machine_check(vcpu);
 
-	if ((intr_info & INTR_INFO_INTR_TYPE_MASK) == INTR_TYPE_NMI_INTR)
+	if (is_nmi(intr_info))
 		return 1;  /* already handled by vmx_vcpu_run() */
 
 	if (is_no_device(intr_info)) {
@@ -8170,7 +8170,7 @@ static bool nested_vmx_exit_handled(struct kvm_vcpu *vcpu)
 
 	switch (exit_reason) {
 	case EXIT_REASON_EXCEPTION_NMI:
-		if (!is_exception(intr_info))
+		if (is_nmi(intr_info))
 			return false;
 		else if (is_page_fault(intr_info))
 			return enable_ept;
@@ -8765,8 +8765,7 @@ static void vmx_complete_atomic_exit(struct vcpu_vmx *vmx)
 		kvm_machine_check();
 
 	/* We need to handle NMIs before interrupts are enabled */
-	if ((exit_intr_info & INTR_INFO_INTR_TYPE_MASK) == INTR_TYPE_NMI_INTR &&
-	    (exit_intr_info & INTR_INFO_VALID_MASK)) {
+	if (is_nmi(exit_intr_info)) {
 		kvm_before_handle_nmi(&vmx->vcpu);
 		asm("int $2");
 		kvm_after_handle_nmi(&vmx->vcpu);

programming_language: C