# CVE-2019-19579: Privilege escalation in n/a

> Attackers with device access can escalate privileges to host OS via DMA due to incomplete fix for PCI passthrough configuration.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:P/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 4 Dec 2019
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** ALPINE-CVE-2019-19579, DEBIAN-CVE-2019-19579, GHSA-mw9v-9fv9-jf3f, UBUNTU-CVE-2019-19579

## What is CVE-2019-19579?

CVE-2019-19579 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Fedoraproject Fedora, published on 4 Dec 2019. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.12.x allowing attackers to gain host OS privileges via DMA in a situation where an untrusted domain has access to a physical device (and assignable-add is not used), because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2019-18424. XSA-302 relies on the use of libxl's "assignable-add" feature to prepare devices to be assigned to untrusted guests. Unfortunately, this is not considered a strictly required step for device assignment. The PCI passthrough documentation on the wiki describes alternate ways of preparing devices for assignment, and libvirt uses its own ways as well. Hosts where these "alternate" methods are used will still leave the system in a vulnerable state after the device comes back from a guest. An untrusted domain with access to a physical device can DMA into host memory, leading to privilege escalation. Only systems where guests are given direct access to physical devices capable of DMA (PCI pass-through) are vulnerable. Systems which do not use PCI pass-through are not vulnerable.

Weakness: CWE-20 (Improper Input Validation)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2019-19579?

It affects 2 products.


Products: Fedoraproject Fedora, Xen Xen.

## How do I fix CVE-2019-19579?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2019-19579 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-19579 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Fedoraproject Fedora

- [CVE-2024-4577](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-4577/): PHP-CGI OS Command Injection (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2021-39226](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-39226/): Grafana Authentication Bypass (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2019-5544](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-5544/): VMware ESXi and Horizon DaaS OpenSLP Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2024-4947](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-4947/): Google Chromium V8 Type Confusion (critical 9.6, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2024-4671](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-4671/): Google Chromium Visuals Use-After-Free (critical 9.6, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2019-19579 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2019-19579 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Fedoraproject Fedora, published on 4 Dec 2019. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-19579 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Fedoraproject Fedora. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-19579/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-19579/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2019-19579
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-19579
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2019-19579

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-19579/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.