Kernel Samepage Merging (KSM) in the Linux kernel 2.6.32 through 4.x does not prevent use of a write-timing side channel, which allows guest OS users to defeat the ASLR protection mechanism on other guest OS instances via a Cross-VM ASL INtrospection (CAIN) attack. NOTE: the vendor states "Basically if you care about this attack vector, disable deduplication." Share-until-written approaches for memory conservation among mutually untrusting tenants are inherently detectable for information disclosure, and can be classified as potentially misunderstood behaviors rather than vulnerabilities
The product exposes sensitive information to an actor that is not explicitly authorized to have access to that information.
| Link | Tags |
|---|---|
| http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/76256 | third party advisory vdb entry |
| http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/935424 | third party advisory us government resource |
| http://www.antoniobarresi.com/files/cain_advisory.txt | third party advisory technical description |
| https://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/BGAR-A2CNKG | third party advisory us government resource |
| https://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/BLUU-9ZAHZH | third party advisory us government resource |
| https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1252096 | third party advisory issue tracking |
| https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/woot15/woot15-paper-barresi.pdf | third party advisory technical description |