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HIGH

Kernel: error in exception handling leads to DoS

Published May 8, 2018

Description

A statement in the System Programming Guide of the Intel 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer's Manual (SDM) was mishandled in the development of some or all operating-system kernels, resulting in unexpected behavior for #DB exceptions that are deferred by MOV SS or POP SS, as demonstrated by (for example) privilege escalation in Windows, macOS, some Xen configurations, or FreeBSD, or a Linux kernel crash. The MOV to SS and POP SS instructions inhibit interrupts (including NMIs), data breakpoints, and single step trap exceptions until the instruction boundary following the next instruction (SDM Vol. 3A; section 6.8.3). (The inhibited data breakpoints are those on memory accessed by the MOV to SS or POP to SS instruction itself.) Note that debug exceptions are not inhibited by the interrupt enable (EFLAGS.IF) system flag (SDM Vol. 3A; section 2.3). If the instruction following the MOV to SS or POP to SS instruction is an instruction like SYSCALL, SYSENTER, INT 3, etc. that transfers control to the operating system at CPL < 3, the debug exception is delivered after the transfer to CPL < 3 is complete. OS kernels may not expect this order of events and may therefore experience unexpected behavior when it occurs.

Affected products

Remediation

Red Hat statement

This issue affects the versions of the Linux kernel as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, 6, 7, and Red Hat Enterprise MRG 2. Future kernel updates for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, 6, 7, and Red Hat Enterprise MRG 2 may address this issue.

Metrics

References (52)

Change history (0)

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Sources
CVE.org / MITRE
Status PUBLISHED
Assigner mitre
Published May 8, 2018
Updated Aug 5, 2024
Reserved Mar 21, 2018
NVD
Status Modified
Modified Jun 17, 2026
Red Hat
Severity Moderate
Public date May 8, 2018