CVE-2020-29487
7.5 · HIGHOverview
CVE-2020-29487 is a high-severity vulnerability affecting xen xapi. It was published on December 15, 2020 and has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 7.5 (HIGH).
This vulnerability has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 7.5, rated HIGH. It can be exploited remotely over the network. No authentication or special privileges are required for exploitation.
Technical Description
An issue was discovered in Xen XAPI before 2020-12-15. Certain xenstore keys provide feedback from the guest, and are therefore watched by toolstack. Specifically, keys are watched by xenopsd, and data are forwarded via RPC through message-switch to xapi. The watching logic in xenopsd sends one RPC update containing all data, any time any single xenstore key is updated, and therefore has O(N^2) time complexity. Furthermore, message-switch retains recent (currently 128) RPC messages for diagnostic purposes, yielding O(M*N) space complexity. The quantity of memory a single guest can monopolise is bounded by xenstored quota, but the quota is fairly large. It is believed to be in excess of 1G per malicious guest. In practice, this manifests as a host denial of service, either through message-switch thrashing against swap, or OOMing entirely, depending on dom0's configuration. (There are no quotas in xenopsd to limit the quantity of keys that result in RPC traffic.) A buggy or malicious gue
Remediation
Check the references section for vendor advisories and patches from xen. Update xapi to the latest patched version. If immediate patching is not possible, review the CVSS vector to understand the attack surface and apply compensating controls such as network segmentation or access restrictions.
Affected Products
| Vendor | Product | Versions | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| xen | xapi | >= 0, < 2020-12-15 | Affected |
Frequently Asked Questions
What is CVE-2020-29487?
CVE-2020-29487 is a high-severity vulnerability affecting xen xapi. It was published on December 15, 2020 and has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 7.5 (HIGH).
How severe is CVE-2020-29487?
This vulnerability has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 7.5, rated HIGH. It can be exploited remotely over the network. No authentication or special privileges are required for exploitation.
How do I fix or remediate CVE-2020-29487?
Check the references section for vendor advisories and patches from xen. Update xapi to the latest patched version. If immediate patching is not possible, review the CVSS vector to understand the attack surface and apply compensating controls such as network segmentation or access restrictions.
How can CyberStrike help with CVE-2020-29487?
CyberStrike's AI-powered security agents can automatically detect CVE-2020-29487 across your infrastructure using autonomous pentesting, DAST scanning, and HackBrowser. The platform continuously monitors for known vulnerabilities and provides actionable remediation guidance prioritized by real-world exploitability.
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