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TI-2022-20552 Aliases CVE-2022-42336GHSA-79pv-m8fc-mhfj

Mishandling of guest SSBD selection on AMD hardware The current logic to set SSBD on AMD…

Priority LOW 16Published · Updated

Key facts

Attack vector
Local
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Attack complexity
Low
Impact type
—
Confidentiality · integrity · availability
None · Low · None
Fix status
No fix listed

Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CISA ADP. Fix status from CNA.

Summary

Mishandling of guest SSBD selection on AMD hardware The current logic to set SSBD on AMD Family 17h and Hygon Family 18h processors requires that the setting of SSBD is coordinated at a core level, as the setting is shared between threads. Logic was introduced to keep track of how many threads require SSBD active in order to coordinate it, such logic relies on using a per-core counter of threads that have SSBD active. When running on the mentioned hardware, it's possible for a guest to under or overflow the thread counter, because each write to VIRT_SPEC_CTRL.SSBD by the guest gets propagated to the helper that does the per-core active accounting. Underflowing the counter causes the value to get saturated, and thus attempts for guests running on the same core to set SSBD won't have effect because the hypervisor assumes it's already active.

Why it matters now

Exploitation None reported CISA SSVC · not in CISA KEV
EPSS 0.00266 18th percentileScored 2026-11-07
Fix No fix listed No fixed version in the sources yet

SSVC decision points

CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3

Exploitation
None
Automatable
No
Technical impact
Partial

The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.

Affected products

VendorProductAffected versionsFixed inStatusSource
Xenxen——No fix listedCNA
  • xen VendorXen Affected — Fixed in — No fix listed CNA

CPE configurations NVD · 1

CPEVersionsRoleVendor
cpe:2.3:o:xen:xen:4.17:*:*:*:*:*:x86:*4.17VulnerableXen
  • cpe:2.3:o:xen:xen:4.17:*:*:*:*:*:x86:* Versions 4.17 Vulnerable ·Xen

Remediation

No fixed version listed by the sources yet.

Vendor assessments

Red Hat

Red Hat's page for this CVE →

Not affected: 1 product
  • Red Hat

Timeline

  1. 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2022-42336
  2. 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-79pv-m8fc-mhfj

References

Advisory 2

  • TI-2012-00210 The x86-64 kernel system-call functionality in Xen 4.1.2 and earlier, as used in Citrix… CVSS 2.0HIGH 7.2
  • TI-2023-07042 Information disclosure through error messages in AMD Ryzen™ 3000 Series Desktop… CVSS 3.1MEDIUM 5.5
  • TI-2015-04333 The C+ mode offload emulation in the RTL8139 network card device model in QEMU, as used… CVSS 2.0HIGH 9.3
  • TI-2015-06741 The KVM subsystem in the Linux kernel through 4.2.6, and Xen 4.3.x through 4.6.x, allows… CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 10.0
  • TI-2018-06436 A statement in the System Programming Guide of the Intel 64 and IA-32 Architectures… CVSS 3.0HIGH 7.8
  • TI-2024-20522 x86: Incorrect logic for BTC/SRSO mitigations CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
See all 489 →

Sources

This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences