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CVE-2023-46836

4.7 · MEDIUM

The fixes for XSA-422 (Branch Type Confusion) and XSA-434 (Speculative Return Stack Overflow) are not IRQ-safe.

Published Jan 5, 2024EPSS 0.25%

Overview

CVE-2023-46836 is a medium-severity vulnerability. It was published on January 5, 2024 and has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 4.7 (MEDIUM).

This vulnerability has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 4.7, rated MEDIUM. It requires local or adjacent network access to exploit. Some level of privileges is required for exploitation.

Technical description

The fixes for XSA-422 (Branch Type Confusion) and XSA-434 (Speculative

Return Stack Overflow) are not IRQ-safe. It was believed that the

mitigations always operated in contexts with IRQs disabled.

However, the original XSA-254 fix for Meltdown (XPTI) deliberately left

interrupts enabled on two entry paths; one unconditionally, and one

conditionally on whether XPTI was active.

As BTC/SRSO and Meltdown affect different CPU vendors, the mitigations

are not active together by default. Therefore, there is a race

condition whereby a malicious PV guest can bypass BTC/SRSO protections

and launch a BTC/SRSO attack against Xen.

Remediation

Check the references section for vendor advisories, patches, and mitigation guidance. 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.

References

Refxenbits.xenproject.org/xsa/advisory-446.htmlRefxenbits.xen.org/xsa/advisory-446.htmlRefxenbits.xenproject.org/xsa/advisory-446.html

How CyberStrike helps

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2023-46836?

CVE-2023-46836 is a medium-severity vulnerability. It was published on January 5, 2024 and has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 4.7 (MEDIUM).

How severe is CVE-2023-46836?

This vulnerability has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 4.7, rated MEDIUM. It requires local or adjacent network access to exploit. Some level of privileges is required for exploitation.

How do I fix or remediate CVE-2023-46836?

Check the references section for vendor advisories, patches, and mitigation guidance. 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-2023-46836?

CyberStrike is an open-source, AI-augmented pentesting engine. Rather than flag a version number, it tests whether an issue like CVE-2023-46836 is actually reachable in your own applications and APIs, then verifies each finding before reporting it. That tells you if the weakness is a real, exploitable risk in your environment or a false positive you can safely deprioritize.

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