xen — security advisory
Unlike 32-bit PV guests, HVM guests may switch freely between 64-bit and other modes. This in particular means that they may set registers used to pass 32-bit-mode hypercall arguments to values outside of the range 32-bit code would be able to set them to. When processing of hypercalls takes a considerable amount of time, the hypervisor may choose to invoke a hypercall continuation. Doing so involves putting (perhaps updated) hypercall arguments in respective registers. For guests not running in 64-bit mode this further involves a certain amount of translation of the values. Unfortunately internal sanity checking of these translated values assumes high halves of registers to always be clear when invoking a hypercall. When this is found not to be the case, it triggers a consistency check in the hypervisor and causes a crash.
- Products
- xen
- Affected versions
- Not specified
- Fixed versions
- 4.16.6-r0, 4.17.4-r0, 4.18.2-r0
- CVEs
- CVE-2023-46842
- Confirmed fixed CVEs
- Not specified
- Updated in this feed
- 1 Nov 2026, 15:01 UTC · Revision 1
Source evidence
Unlike 32-bit PV guests, HVM guests may switch freely between 64-bit and other modes. This in particular means that they may set registers used to pass 32-bit-mode hypercall arguments to values outside of the range 32-bit code would be able to set them to. When processing of hypercalls takes a considerable amount of time, the hypervisor may choose to invoke a hypercall continuation. Doing so involves putting (perhaps updated) hypercall arguments in respective registers. For guests not running in 64-bit mode this further involves a certain amount of translation of the values. Unfortunately internal sanity checking of these translated values assumes high halves of registers to always be clear when invoking a hypercall. When this is found not to be the case, it triggers a consistency check in the hypervisor and causes a crash.
osv:ALPINE-CVE-2023-46842
xen
Fixed versions: 4.16.6-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.16.6-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.17.4-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.18.2-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.18.2-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.18.2-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.18.2-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.18.2-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.18.2-r0
Complete source record
{
"id": "4b6eecc7f6e76768775f6cc26faebd484181db7f605b4be0fe09ff1cc4d76719",
"url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/ALPINE-CVE-2023-46842",
"method": "structured",
"payload": {
"kind": "advisory",
"title": "ALPINE-CVE-2023-46842",
"summary": "Unlike 32-bit PV guests, HVM guests may switch freely between 64-bit and other modes. This in particular means that they may set registers used to pass 32-bit-mode hypercall arguments to values outside of the range 32-bit code would be able to set them to. When processing of hypercalls takes a considerable amount of time, the hypervisor may choose to invoke a hypercall continuation. Doing so involves putting (perhaps updated) hypercall arguments in respective registers. For guests not running in 64-bit mode this further involves a certain amount of translation of the values. Unfortunately internal sanity checking of these translated values assumes high halves of registers to always be clear when invoking a hypercall. When this is found not to be the case, it triggers a consistency check in the hypervisor and causes a crash.",
"evidence": "osv:ALPINE-CVE-2023-46842",
"products": [
{
"name": {
"value": "xen",
"evidence": "/affected/0/package/name"
},
"prerequisites": [],
"fixed_versions": [
{
"value": "4.16.6-r0",
"evidence": "/affected/0/ranges"
}
],
"affected_versions": []
},
{
"name": {
"value": "xen",
"evidence": "/affected/1/package/name"
},
"prerequisites": [],
"fixed_versions": [
{
"value": "4.16.6-r0",
"evidence": "/affected/1/ranges"
}
],
"affected_versions": []
},
{
"name": {
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"evidence": "/affected/2/package/name"
},
"prerequisites": [],
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"evidence": "/affected/2/ranges"
}
],
"affected_versions": []
},
{
"name": {
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"evidence": "/affected/3/package/name"
},
"prerequisites": [],
"fixed_versions": [
{
"value": "4.18.2-r0",
"evidence": "/affected/3/ranges"
}
],
"affected_versions": []
},
{
"name": {
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"evidence": "/affected/4/package/name"
},
"prerequisites": [],
"fixed_versions": [
{
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"evidence": "/affected/4/ranges"
}
],
"affected_versions": []
},
{
"name": {
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"evidence": "/affected/5/package/name"
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}
],
"affected_versions": []
},
{
"name": {
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"evidence": "/affected/6/package/name"
},
"prerequisites": [],
"fixed_versions": [
{
"value": "4.18.2-r0",
"evidence": "/affected/6/ranges"
}
],
"affected_versions": []
},
{
"name": {
"value": "xen",
"evidence": "/affected/7/package/name"
},
"prerequisites": [],
"fixed_versions": [
{
"value": "4.18.2-r0",
"evidence": "/affected/7/ranges"
}
],
"affected_versions": []
},
{
"name": {
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"evidence": "/affected/8/package/name"
},
"prerequisites": [],
"fixed_versions": [
{
"value": "4.18.2-r0",
"evidence": "/affected/8/ranges"
}
],
"affected_versions": []
}
],
"severity": "medium",
"structured": {
"id": "ALPINE-CVE-2023-46842",
"aliases": [
"ALPINE-CVE-2023-46842"
],
"metrics": [
{
"type": "CVSS_V3",
"score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H"
}
],
"affected": [
{
"ranges": [
{
"type": "ECOSYSTEM",
"events": [
{
"introduced": "3.2.0"
},
{
"fixed": "4.16.6-r0"
}
]
}
],
"package": {
"name": "xen",
"purl": "pkg:apk/alpine/xen?arch=source",
"ecosystem": "Alpine:v3.16"
},
"database_specific": {
"source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/alpine/ALPINE-CVE-2023-46842.json"
},
"ecosystem_specific": {}
},
{
"ranges": [
{
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"events": [
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{
"fixed": "4.16.6-r0"
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}
],
"package": {
"name": "xen",
"purl": "pkg:apk/alpine/xen?arch=source",
"ecosystem": "Alpine:v3.17"
},
"database_specific": {
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"ecosystem_specific": {}
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{
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],
"package": {
"name": "xen",
"purl": "pkg:apk/alpine/xen?arch=source",
"ecosystem": "Alpine:v3.18"
},
"database_specific": {
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},
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{
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],
"package": {
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"purl": "pkg:apk/alpine/xen?arch=source",
"ecosystem": "Alpine:v3.19"
},
"database_specific": {
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{
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],
"package": {
"name": "xen",
"purl": "pkg:apk/alpine/xen?arch=source",
"ecosystem": "Alpine:v3.20"
},
"database_specific": {
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{
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],
"package": {
"name": "xen",
"purl": "pkg:apk/alpine/xen?arch=source",
"ecosystem": "Alpine:v3.21"
},
"database_specific": {
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{
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{
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],
"package": {
"name": "xen",
"purl": "pkg:apk/alpine/xen?arch=source",
"ecosystem": "Alpine:v3.22"
},
"database_specific": {
"source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/alpine/ALPINE-CVE-2023-46842.json"
},
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{
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},
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}
]
}
],
"package": {
"name": "xen",
"purl": "pkg:apk/alpine/xen?arch=source",
"ecosystem": "Alpine:v3.23"
},
"database_specific": {
"source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/alpine/ALPINE-CVE-2023-46842.json"
},
"ecosystem_specific": {}
},
{
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{
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"events": [
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}
]
}
],
"package": {
"name": "xen",
"purl": "pkg:apk/alpine/xen?arch=source",
"ecosystem": "Alpine:v3.24"
},
"database_specific": {
"source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/alpine/ALPINE-CVE-2023-46842.json"
},
"ecosystem_specific": {}
}
],
"modified": "2026-10-26T17:17:58.650265055Z",
"provider": "osv",
"upstream": [
"CVE-2023-46842"
],
"references": [
"https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2023-46842"
]
},
"related_cves": [
{
"value": "CVE-2023-46842",
"evidence": "/upstream"
}
],
"security_relevant": true,
"severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
},
"source_id": "core-osv",
"document_id": 454529,
"published_at": "2024-05-16T14:15:08.317+00:00"
}