Cyber Resilience

CVE-2024-45818

Xen 4.6.0 – 4.20.0

Published
19 December 2024
Modified
20 May 2025
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 6.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N
EPSS Score 0.0027 19th percentile
Risk Priority 46 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2024-45818 is a medium-severity Improper Locking (CWE-667) vulnerability in Xen Xen. Its CVSS base score is 6.5 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Endpoint Denial of Service (T1499); ranked at the 19th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

The hypervisor contains code to accelerate VGA memory accesses for HVM guests, when the (virtual) VGA is in "standard" mode. Locking involved there has an unusual discipline, leaving a lock acquired past the return from the function that acquired it.…

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This behavior results in a problem when emulating an instruction with two memory accesses, both of which touch VGA memory (plus some further constraints which aren't relevant here). When emulating the 2nd access, the lock that is already being held would be attempted to be re-acquired, resulting in a deadlock. This deadlock was already found when the code was first introduced, but was analysed incorrectly and the fix was incomplete. Analysis in light of the new finding cannot find a way to make the existing locking discipline work. In staging, this logic has all been removed because it was discovered to be accidentally disabled since Xen 4.7. Therefore, we are fixing the locking problem by backporting the removal of most of the feature. Note that even with the feature disabled, the lock would still be acquired for any accesses to the VGA MMIO region.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1499 Endpoint Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Endpoint Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of services to users.
T1499.004 Application or System Exploitation Impact
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities that can cause an application or system to crash and deny availability to users.
T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
T1548 Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may circumvent mechanisms designed to control privilege elevation to gain higher-level permissions.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-58143Same product: Xen Xen
CVE-2026-23555Same product: Xen Xen
CVE-2026-23557Same product: Xen Xen
CVE-2023-34323Same product: Xen Xen
CVE-2025-58144Same product: Xen Xen
CVE-2025-58145Same product: Xen Xen
CVE-2026-23558Same product: Xen Xen
CVE-2023-34322Same product: Xen Xen
CVE-2025-27465Same product: Xen Xen
CVE-2026-23554Same product: Xen Xen

Affected Assets

xen
xen
4.6.0 — 4.20.0

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly include code reviews, static analysis, and concurrency standards that prevent improper locking.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

finds

Security testing can detect race conditions and locking errors before release.

prevents

Secure development lifecycle includes concurrency and locking requirements that reduce improper locking defects.

prevents

Application security requirements can mandate proper lock acquisition/release patterns.

prevents

Secure architecture principles address thread-safety and resource synchronization.

prevents

Secure coding standards directly prohibit missing or incorrect lock usage.

prevents

Change management may catch locking issues introduced by modifications but does not prevent the weakness itself.

References