CVE-2018-1087 Privilege escalation in KVM

What is CVE-2018-1087?

CVE-2018-1087 is a high-severity vulnerability in Canonical Ubuntu Linux, published on 15 May 2018. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

kernel KVM before versions kernel 4.16, kernel 4.16-rc7, kernel 4.17-rc1, kernel 4.17-rc2 and kernel 4.17-rc3 is vulnerable to a flaw in the way the Linux kernel's KVM hypervisor handled exceptions delivered after a stack switch operation via Mov SS or Pop SS instructions. During the stack switch operation, the processor did not deliver interrupts and exceptions, rather they are delivered once the first instruction after the stack switch is executed. An unprivileged KVM guest user could use this flaw to crash the guest or, potentially, escalate their privileges in the guest.

Weakness: CWE-250

Which versions are affected by CVE-2018-1087?

It affects 11 products.

Products include Canonical Ubuntu Linux, Debian Debian Linux, Linux kernel, Redhat Enterprise Linux, Redhat Enterprise Linux Desktop, Redhat Enterprise Linux Server and 5 more.

How do I fix CVE-2018-1087?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2018-1087 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2018-1087 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Canonical Ubuntu Linux

• CVE-2020-11651 SaltStack Salt Authentication Bypass Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2020-7247 OpenSMTPD Remote Code Execution Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2019-16928 Exim Out-of-bounds Write Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2018-6789 Exim Buffer Overflow Exploited Critical 9.8
• CVE-2015-2590 Oracle Java SE and Java SE Embedded Remote Code Execution Exploited Critical 9.8

All Canonical Ubuntu Linux vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2018-1087, GHSA-j658-wqr4-q3w7, UBUNTU-CVE-2018-1087.