MediumFix available
xen — security advisory
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.11.x. The DEBUGCTL MSR contains several debugging features, some of which virtualise cleanly, but some do not. In particular, Branch Trace Store is not virtualised by the processor, and software has to be careful to configure it suitably not to lock up the core. As a result, it must only be available to fully trusted guests. Unfortunately, in the case that vPMU is disabled, all value checking was skipped, allowing the guest to choose any MSR_DEBUGCTL setting it likes. A malicious or buggy guest administrator (on Intel x86 HVM or PVH) can lock up the entire host, causing a Denial of Service.
- Products
- xen
- Affected versions
- Not specified
- Fixed versions
- 4.10.1-r3, 4.11.1-r0, 4.8.5-r0, 4.9.3-r0
- CVEs
- CVE-2018-15468
- Confirmed fixed CVEs
- Not specified
- Updated in this feed
- 31 Oct 2026, 21:58 UTC · Revision 1
Source evidence
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.11.x. The DEBUGCTL MSR contains several debugging features, some of which virtualise cleanly, but some do not. In particular, Branch Trace Store is not virtualised by the processor, and software has to be careful to configure it suitably not to lock up the core. As a result, it must only be available to fully trusted guests. Unfortunately, in the case that vPMU is disabled, all value checking was skipped, allowing the guest to choose any MSR_DEBUGCTL setting it likes. A malicious or buggy guest administrator (on Intel x86 HVM or PVH) can lock up the entire host, causing a Denial of Service.
osv:ALPINE-CVE-2018-15468
xen
Fixed versions: 4.11.1-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.11.1-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.11.1-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.11.1-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.11.1-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.11.1-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.11.1-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.11.1-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.11.1-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.11.1-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.11.1-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.11.1-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.11.1-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.11.1-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.11.1-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.8.5-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.9.3-r0
xen
Fixed versions: 4.10.1-r3
xen
Fixed versions: 4.11.1-r0
Complete source record
{
"id": "65d99e6f60fb22c9b82cfc9ac830ab9a988d013c00df31c2e63e8b6ec175916b",
"url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/ALPINE-CVE-2018-15468",
"method": "structured",
"payload": {
"kind": "advisory",
"title": "ALPINE-CVE-2018-15468",
"summary": "An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.11.x. The DEBUGCTL MSR contains several debugging features, some of which virtualise cleanly, but some do not. In particular, Branch Trace Store is not virtualised by the processor, and software has to be careful to configure it suitably not to lock up the core. As a result, it must only be available to fully trusted guests. Unfortunately, in the case that vPMU is disabled, all value checking was skipped, allowing the guest to choose any MSR_DEBUGCTL setting it likes. A malicious or buggy guest administrator (on Intel x86 HVM or PVH) can lock up the entire host, causing a Denial of Service.",
"evidence": "osv:ALPINE-CVE-2018-15468",
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{
"name": {
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{
"name": {
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"evidence": "/affected/18/package/name"
},
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"evidence": "/affected/18/ranges"
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"severity": "medium",
"structured": {
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"aliases": [
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],
"metrics": [
{
"type": "CVSS_V3",
"score": "CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H"
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],
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},
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},
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],
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},
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],
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"ecosystem": "Alpine:v3.9"
},
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}
],
"modified": "2026-10-23T17:17:55.219958752Z",
"provider": "osv",
"upstream": [
"CVE-2018-15468"
],
"references": [
"https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2018-15468"
]
},
"related_cves": [
{
"value": "CVE-2018-15468",
"evidence": "/upstream"
}
],
"security_relevant": true,
"severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
},
"source_id": "core-osv",
"document_id": 415058,
"published_at": "2018-08-17T18:29:00.74+00:00"
}