CVE-2018-12892
9.9 · CRITICALOverview
CVE-2018-12892 is a critical-severity vulnerability affecting debian debian_linux. It was published on July 2, 2018 and has a CVSS 3.0 base score of 9.9 (CRITICAL).
This vulnerability has a CVSS 3.0 base score of 9.9, rated CRITICAL. It can be exploited remotely over the network. Some level of privileges is required for exploitation.
Technical Description
An issue was discovered in Xen 4.7 through 4.10.x. libxl fails to pass the readonly flag to qemu when setting up a SCSI disk, due to what was probably an erroneous merge conflict resolution. Malicious guest administrators or (in some situations) users may be able to write to supposedly read-only disk images. Only emulated SCSI disks (specified as "sd" in the libxl disk configuration, or an equivalent) are affected. IDE disks ("hd") are not affected (because attempts to make them readonly are rejected). Additionally, CDROM devices (that is, devices specified to be presented to the guest as CDROMs, regardless of the nature of the backing storage on the host) are not affected; they are always read only. Only systems using qemu-xen (rather than qemu-xen-traditional) as the device model version are vulnerable. Only systems using libxl or libxl-based toolstacks are vulnerable. (This includes xl, and libvirt with the libxl driver.) The vulnerability is present in Xen versions 4.7 and later. (
Remediation
Check the references section for vendor advisories and patches from debian. Update debian_linux 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 | xen | 4.7.0 | Affected |
References
Frequently Asked Questions
What is CVE-2018-12892?
CVE-2018-12892 is a critical-severity vulnerability affecting debian debian_linux. It was published on July 2, 2018 and has a CVSS 3.0 base score of 9.9 (CRITICAL).
How severe is CVE-2018-12892?
This vulnerability has a CVSS 3.0 base score of 9.9, rated CRITICAL. It can be exploited remotely over the network. Some level of privileges is required for exploitation.
How do I fix or remediate CVE-2018-12892?
Check the references section for vendor advisories and patches from debian. Update debian_linux 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-2018-12892?
CyberStrike's AI-powered security agents can automatically detect CVE-2018-12892 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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