# CVE-2023-34322: top-level shadow reference dropped too early for 64-bit PV guests

> A race condition in Xen's shadow paging for 64-bit PV guests allows attackers to escalate privileges or cause denial of service.

- **Severity:** High 7.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 5 Jan 2024
- **Updated:** 4 Nov 2025
- **Also known as:** ALPINE-CVE-2023-34322, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-34322, GHSA-3qxp-p56x-r4h3, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-34322

## What is CVE-2023-34322?

CVE-2023-34322 is a high-severity vulnerability in Xen Xen, published on 5 Jan 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

For migration as well as to work around kernels unaware of L1TF (see
XSA-273), PV guests may be run in shadow paging mode.  Since Xen itself
needs to be mapped when PV guests run, Xen and shadowed PV guests run
directly the respective shadow page tables.  For 64-bit PV guests this
means running on the shadow of the guest root page table.

In the course of dealing with shortage of memory in the shadow pool
associated with a domain, shadows of page tables may be torn down.  This
tearing down may include the shadow root page table that the CPU in
question is presently running on.  While a precaution exists to
supposedly prevent the tearing down of the underlying live page table,
the time window covered by that precaution isn't large enough.

Weakness: CWE-273 (Improper Check for Dropped Privileges)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-34322?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Xen Xen.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-34322?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2023-34322 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-34322 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Xen Xen

- [CVE-2017-10912](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-10912/): Privilege escalation in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2017-10918](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-10918/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2017-10920](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-10920/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2017-10921](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-10921/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2025-27466](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-27466/): Mutiple vulnerabilities in the Viridian interface (critical 9.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2023-34322 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-34322 is a high-severity vulnerability in Xen Xen, published on 5 Jan 2024. 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-2023-34322 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Xen Xen. 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-2023-34322/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-34322/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-34322
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-34322
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-34322

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-34322/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.