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TI-2023-25302 Aliases CVE-2023-46841GHSA-mxh6-2xpg-m77w

x86: shadow stack vs exceptions from emulation stubs

Priority LOW 28Published · Updated

Key facts

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

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

Summary

Recent x86 CPUs offer functionality named Control-flow Enforcement Technology (CET). A sub-feature of this are Shadow Stacks (CET-SS). CET-SS is a hardware feature designed to protect against Return Oriented Programming attacks. When enabled, traditional stacks holding both data and return addresses are accompanied by so called "shadow stacks", holding little more than return addresses. Shadow stacks aren't writable by normal instructions, and upon function returns their contents are used to check for possible manipulation of a return address coming from the traditional stack. In particular certain memory accesses need intercepting by Xen. In various cases the necessary emulation involves kind of replaying of the instruction. Such replaying typically involves filling and then invoking of a stub. Such a replayed instruction may raise an exceptions, which is expected and dealt with accordingly. Unfortunately the interaction of both of the above wasn't right: Recovery involves removal of a call frame from the (traditional) stack. The counterpart of this operation for the shadow stack was missing.

Why it matters now

Exploitation None reported CISA SSVC · not in CISA KEV
EPSS 0.00269 19th 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 · 2

CPEVersionsRoleVendor
cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:40:*:*:*:*:*:*:*40VulnerableFedoraproject
cpe:2.3:o:xen:xen:*:*:*:*:*:*:x86:*4.14.0VulnerableXen
  • cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:40:*:*:*:*:*:*:* Versions 40 Vulnerable ·Fedoraproject
  • cpe:2.3:o:xen:xen:*:*:*:*:*:*:x86:* Versions 4.14.0 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-2023-46841
  2. 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-mxh6-2xpg-m77w

References

  • 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