Cross-guest memory disclosure via IRQ-safety race
Published Jan 5, 2024 · Updated Nov 4, 2025
Information disclosure in Xen on x86 systems allows guest OS users to infer memory contents belonging to other guests. The XPTI entry paths leave interrupts enabled while the BTC/SRSO fixes assume IRQs are disabled, creating a race that bypasses those mitigations. Only PV guests can trigger the race; default configurations are vulnerable only on AMD and Hygon CPUs, and the consequence is cross-guest memory inference.
Summary
What happened
Information disclosure in Xen on x86 systems allows guest OS users to infer memory contents belonging to other guests. The XPTI entry paths leave interrupts enabled while the BTC/SRSO fixes assume IRQs are disabled, creating a race that bypasses those mitigations. Only PV guests can trigger the race; default configurations are vulnerable only on AMD and Hygon CPUs, and the consequence is cross-guest memory inference.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2023-46836
- Published
- Jan 5, 2024
- Updated
- Nov 4, 2025
- Vendor
- Unknown vendor
- Product
- Unknown product
- Classifications
- Unavailable
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Jan 5, 2024CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Nov 4, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Affected products and versions are unavailable in this record.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
No sourced classifications are available.
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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