CVE-2016-9384 Xen CVE debrief

Who should care

Operators of Xen 4.7.0 and 4.7.1 hosts, especially multi-tenant, cloud, or other shared environments where untrusted guest OS users can run workloads.

Technical summary

The corpus describes a Xen 4.7 flaw in which a guest-side user can trigger disclosure of sensitive host information through handling of a 32-bit ELF symbol table. NVD lists Xen 4.7.0 and 4.7.1 as vulnerable CPEs and maps the issue to CWE-200 (Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor). The vendor advisory XSA-194 and its patch are the primary remediation references.

Defensive priority

High for shared Xen 4.7 deployments; medium for isolated or non-production environments.

Recommended defensive actions

• Apply the Xen vendor fix referenced by XSA-194 and the accompanying patch.
• Inventory Xen 4.7.0 and 4.7.1 systems and confirm they are upgraded or otherwise remediated.
• Prioritize remediation on hosts that run untrusted or multi-tenant guest workloads.
• Check downstream distribution advisories, such as Gentoo GLSA-201612-56, for package-specific guidance.

Evidence notes

The CVE record and NVD detail both identify the issue as a Xen guest-to-host information disclosure. NVD provides the CVSS 3.0 vector AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N, the CWE-200 mapping, and affected CPEs for Xen 4.7.0 and 4.7.1. Xen advisory XSA-194 and xsa194.patch are the vendor remediation references; Gentoo GLSA-201612-56 is a downstream advisory reference.

Official resources