Vulnerabilities > CVE-2021-28688 - Improper Initialization vulnerability in multiple products
Attack vector
LOCAL Attack complexity
LOW Privileges required
NONE Confidentiality impact
NONE Integrity impact
NONE Availability impact
PARTIAL Summary
The fix for XSA-365 includes initialization of pointers such that subsequent cleanup code wouldn't use uninitialized or stale values. This initialization went too far and may under certain conditions also overwrite pointers which are in need of cleaning up. The lack of cleanup would result in leaking persistent grants. The leak in turn would prevent fully cleaning up after a respective guest has died, leaving around zombie domains. All Linux versions having the fix for XSA-365 applied are vulnerable. XSA-365 was classified to affect versions back to at least 3.11.
Vulnerable Configurations
Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)
Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)
- Leveraging Race Conditions This attack targets a race condition occurring when multiple processes access and manipulate the same resource concurrently and the outcome of the execution depends on the particular order in which the access takes place. The attacker can leverage a race condition by "running the race", modifying the resource and modifying the normal execution flow. For instance a race condition can occur while accessing a file, the attacker can trick the system by replacing the original file with his version and cause the system to read the malicious file.
- Leveraging Time-of-Check and Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) Race Conditions This attack targets a race condition occurring between the time of check (state) for a resource and the time of use of a resource. The typical example is the file access. The attacker can leverage a file access race condition by "running the race", meaning that he would modify the resource between the first time the target program accesses the file and the time the target program uses the file. During that period of time, the attacker could do something such as replace the file and cause an escalation of privilege.