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xen — security advisory

Type: advisorySources: OSVAdvisory ID: ALPINE-CVE-2020-29481

An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.14.x. Access rights of Xenstore nodes are per domid. Unfortunately, existing granted access rights are not removed when a domain is being destroyed. This means that a new domain created with the same domid will inherit the access rights to Xenstore nodes from the previous domain(s) with the same domid. Because all Xenstore entries of a guest below /local/domain/ are being deleted by Xen tools when a guest is destroyed, only Xenstore entries of other guests still running are affected. For example, a newly created guest domain might be able to read sensitive information that had belonged to a previously existing guest domain. Both Xenstore implementations (C and Ocaml) are vulnerable.

Products
xen
Affected versions
Not specified
Fixed versions
4.13.2-r3, 4.14.1-r0
CVEs
CVE-2020-29481
Confirmed fixed CVEs
Not specified
Updated in this feed
1 Nov 2026, 12:09 UTC · Revision 1

Source evidence

ALPINE-CVE-2020-29481

core-osv · Original source

Published 15 Dec 2020, 18:15 UTC

An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.14.x. Access rights of Xenstore nodes are per domid. Unfortunately, existing granted access rights are not removed when a domain is being destroyed. This means that a new domain created with the same domid will inherit the access rights to Xenstore nodes from the previous domain(s) with the same domid. Because all Xenstore entries of a guest below /local/domain/ are being deleted by Xen tools when a guest is destroyed, only Xenstore entries of other guests still running are affected. For example, a newly created guest domain might be able to read sensitive information that had belonged to a previously existing guest domain. Both Xenstore implementations (C and Ocaml) are vulnerable.

osv:ALPINE-CVE-2020-29481

xen

Fixed versions: 4.13.2-r3

xen

Fixed versions: 4.13.2-r3

xen

Fixed versions: 4.14.1-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.14.1-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.14.1-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.14.1-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.14.1-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.14.1-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.14.1-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.14.1-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.14.1-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.14.1-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.14.1-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.14.1-r0

Complete source record
{
  "id": "f6f4c4bac36ec04cff5fe8ca9481359ef0f8d55b0defd2f9b3f6863be1891913",
  "url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/ALPINE-CVE-2020-29481",
  "method": "structured",
  "payload": {
    "kind": "advisory",
    "title": "ALPINE-CVE-2020-29481",
    "summary": "An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.14.x. Access rights of Xenstore nodes are per domid. Unfortunately, existing granted access rights are not removed when a domain is being destroyed. This means that a new domain created with the same domid will inherit the access rights to Xenstore nodes from the previous domain(s) with the same domid. Because all Xenstore entries of a guest below /local/domain/ are being deleted by Xen tools when a guest is destroyed, only Xenstore entries of other guests still running are affected. For example, a newly created guest domain might be able to read sensitive information that had belonged to a previously existing guest domain. Both Xenstore implementations (C and Ocaml) are vulnerable.",
    "evidence": "osv:ALPINE-CVE-2020-29481",
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    "severity": "high",
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      "aliases": [
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          "ecosystem_specific": {}
        }
      ],
      "modified": "2026-10-26T11:17:55.168259373Z",
      "provider": "osv",
      "upstream": [
        "CVE-2020-29481"
      ],
      "references": [
        "https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2020-29481"
      ]
    },
    "related_cves": [
      {
        "value": "CVE-2020-29481",
        "evidence": "/upstream"
      }
    ],
    "security_relevant": true,
    "severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
  },
  "source_id": "core-osv",
  "document_id": 450605,
  "published_at": "2020-12-15T18:15:15.067+00:00"
}