MediumFix available
xen — security advisory
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.13.x, allowing x86 HVM guest OS users to cause a hypervisor crash. An inverted conditional in x86 HVM guests' dirty video RAM tracking code allows such guests to make Xen de-reference a pointer guaranteed to point at unmapped space. A malicious or buggy HVM guest may cause the hypervisor to crash, resulting in Denial of Service (DoS) affecting the entire host. Xen versions from 4.8 onwards are affected. Xen versions 4.7 and earlier are not affected. Only x86 systems are affected. Arm systems are not affected. Only x86 HVM guests using shadow paging can leverage the vulnerability. In addition, there needs to be an entity actively monitoring a guest's video frame buffer (typically for display purposes) in order for such a guest to be able to leverage the vulnerability. x86 PV guests, as well as x86 HVM guests using hardware assisted paging (HAP), cannot leverage the vulnerability.
- Products
- xen
- Affected versions
- Not specified
- Fixed versions
- 4.11.4-r0, 4.12.3-r2, 4.13.1-r2, 4.13.1-r4
- CVEs
- CVE-2020-15563
- Confirmed fixed CVEs
- Not specified
- Updated in this feed
- 1 Nov 2026, 12:03 UTC · Revision 1
Source evidence
An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.13.x, allowing x86 HVM guest OS users to cause a hypervisor crash. An inverted conditional in x86 HVM guests' dirty video RAM tracking code allows such guests to make Xen de-reference a pointer guaranteed to point at unmapped space. A malicious or buggy HVM guest may cause the hypervisor to crash, resulting in Denial of Service (DoS) affecting the entire host. Xen versions from 4.8 onwards are affected. Xen versions 4.7 and earlier are not affected. Only x86 systems are affected. Arm systems are not affected. Only x86 HVM guests using shadow paging can leverage the vulnerability. In addition, there needs to be an entity actively monitoring a guest's video frame buffer (typically for display purposes) in order for such a guest to be able to leverage the vulnerability. x86 PV guests, as well as x86 HVM guests using hardware assisted paging (HAP), cannot leverage the vulnerability.
osv:ALPINE-CVE-2020-15563
xen
Fixed versions: 4.12.3-r2
xen
Fixed versions: 4.13.1-r2
xen
Fixed versions: 4.13.1-r2
xen
Fixed versions: 4.13.1-r4
xen
Fixed versions: 4.13.1-r4
xen
Fixed versions: 4.13.1-r4
xen
Fixed versions: 4.13.1-r4
xen
Fixed versions: 4.13.1-r4
xen
Fixed versions: 4.13.1-r4
xen
Fixed versions: 4.13.1-r4
xen
Fixed versions: 4.13.1-r4
xen
Fixed versions: 4.13.1-r4
xen
Fixed versions: 4.13.1-r4
xen
Fixed versions: 4.13.1-r4
xen
Fixed versions: 4.13.1-r4
xen
Fixed versions: 4.11.4-r0
Complete source record
{
"id": "c5b36c3356223e51bf104bae75ffc5402744d6ecd76345138cd8840ec5498fa3",
"url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/ALPINE-CVE-2020-15563",
"method": "structured",
"payload": {
"kind": "advisory",
"title": "ALPINE-CVE-2020-15563",
"summary": "An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.13.x, allowing x86 HVM guest OS users to cause a hypervisor crash. An inverted conditional in x86 HVM guests' dirty video RAM tracking code allows such guests to make Xen de-reference a pointer guaranteed to point at unmapped space. A malicious or buggy HVM guest may cause the hypervisor to crash, resulting in Denial of Service (DoS) affecting the entire host. Xen versions from 4.8 onwards are affected. Xen versions 4.7 and earlier are not affected. Only x86 systems are affected. Arm systems are not affected. Only x86 HVM guests using shadow paging can leverage the vulnerability. In addition, there needs to be an entity actively monitoring a guest's video frame buffer (typically for display purposes) in order for such a guest to be able to leverage the vulnerability. x86 PV guests, as well as x86 HVM guests using hardware assisted paging (HAP), cannot leverage the vulnerability.",
"evidence": "osv:ALPINE-CVE-2020-15563",
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"aliases": [
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"metrics": [
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],
"modified": "2026-10-26T11:17:55.132288383Z",
"provider": "osv",
"upstream": [
"CVE-2020-15563"
],
"references": [
"https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2020-15563"
]
},
"related_cves": [
{
"value": "CVE-2020-15563",
"evidence": "/upstream"
}
],
"security_relevant": true,
"severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
},
"source_id": "core-osv",
"document_id": 450440,
"published_at": "2020-07-07T13:15:09.963+00:00"
}