CVE-2023-46841

CVE-2023-46841 · x86: shadow stack vs exceptions from emulation stubs

This page contains facts from public vulnerability sources. Check the original advisory before updating.

Recent x86 CPUs offer functionality named Control-flow Enforcement Technology (CET). A sub-feature of this are Shadow Stacks (CET-SS). CET-SS is a hardware feature designed to protect against Return Oriented Programming attacks. When enabled, traditional stacks holding both data and return addresses are accompanied by so called "shadow stacks", holding little more than return addresses. Shadow stacks aren't writable by normal instructions, and upon function returns their contents are used to check for possible manipulation of a return address coming from the traditional stack. In particular certain memory accesses need intercepting by Xen. In various cases the necessary emulation involves kind of replaying of the instruction. Such replaying typically involves filling and then invoking of a stub. Such a replayed instruction may raise an exceptions, which is expected and dealt with accordingly. Unfortunately the interaction of both of the above wasn't right: Recovery involves removal of a call frame from the (traditional) stack. The counterpart of this operation for the shadow stack was missing.

CVSS 6.5 · Medium · EPSS 0.3% · Fix available

Published

2024-03-20T10:40:36.597Z

Updated

2025-11-04T18:18:57.552Z

Stack: system

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