x86: XPTI may break on huge-memory systems (Xen Xen)

CVE-2026-79609
HIGH 8.8

At a glance

Source
NVD
EPSS
EPSS 0.11 % · percentile 1 ()
State
PUBLISHED
Published
Updated
Assigner
XEN
NVD status
Awaiting Analysis

Description

XPTI (Xen Page Table Isolation) was introduced to mitigate Meltdown (CVE-2017-5754, one aspect of XSA-254). This involves copying 64-bit PV guest page table entries from guest-chosen root page tables to the Xen- chosen one which is in actual use by hardware. To read the guest root page table, the directmap is used. PV guests, however, have a directmap which may not cover all memory; in particular this is the case if any memory extends beyond the 5 TiB (CONFIG_BIGMEM=y: 3.5 TiB) address boundary.

Weaknesses (CWE)

  • CWE-284 — Improper Access Control

References

Scores

VersionScoreVectorScored by
CVSS 3.1HIGH 8.8CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:HCISA-ADP
CVSS 3.1HIGH 8.8CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:HNVD · 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0 (Secondary)

European references

CERT-FR advisories

Affected products

ProductVersions
Xen · Xenunknown consult Xen advisory XSA-516

Sources

SourceLicence
CVE List (CVEProject cvelistV5)CVE Program Terms of Use
EPSS (FIRST.org)FIRST — attribution requested
ENISA EUVDENISA — reproduction authorised, source acknowledged
CERT-FR (ANSSI)Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0
NVD (NIST) via fkie-cad/nvd-json-data-feedsPublic domain — this product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD