Description
Mishandling of guest SSBD selection on AMD hardware The current logic to set SSBD on AMD Family 17h and Hygon Family 18h processors requires that the setting of SSBD is coordinated at a core level, as the setting is shared between threads. Logic was introduced to keep track of how many threads require SSBD active in order to coordinate it, such logic relies on using a per-core counter of threads that have SSBD active. When running on the mentioned hardware, it's possible for a guest to under or overflow the thread counter, because each write to VIRT_SPEC_CTRL.SSBD by the guest gets propagated to the helper that does the per-core active accounting. Underflowing the counter causes the value to get saturated, and thus attempts for guests running on the same core to set SSBD won't have effect because the hypervisor assumes it's already active.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Xen | xen | — | — |
Fixed in Linux distributions
Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.
Debian
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian 14 | xen | 4.17.1+2-gb773c48e36-1 | — |
| Debian 13 | xen | 4.17.1+2-gb773c48e36-1 | — |
| Debian 12 | xen | 4.17.1+2-gb773c48e36-1 | — |
Ubuntu
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu 26.10 | xen | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 26.04 LTS | xen | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 25.10 | xen | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 24.04 LTS | xen | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 22.04 LTS | xen | No fix yet | — |
Show 3 more (older releases, extended support, other products)Fewer releases
| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu 20.04 LTS | xen | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 18.04 LTS | xen | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 16.04 LTS | xen | No fix yet | — |
SUSE
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| SLES 15 SP5 | xen | 4.17.1_04-150500.3.3.1 | SUSE-SU-2023:2535-1 |
openSUSE
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| openSUSE Tumbleweed | xen | 4.17.1_04-1.1 | openSUSE-SU-2024:12959-1 |
| openSUSE Leap 15.5 | xen | 4.17.1_04-150500.3.3.1 | SUSE-SU-2023:2535-1 |
Alpine
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alpine v3.24 | xen | 4.17.1-r1 | — |
| Alpine v3.23 | xen | 4.17.1-r1 | — |
| Alpine v3.22 | xen | 4.17.1-r1 | — |
| Alpine v3.21 | xen | 4.17.1-r1 | — |
| Alpine v3.20 | xen | 4.17.1-r1 | — |
Show 2 more (older releases, extended support, other products)Fewer releases
| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alpine v3.19 | xen | 4.17.1-r1 | — |
| Alpine v3.18 | xen | 4.17.1-r1 | — |
Advisories 3
- openSUSE-SU-2024:12959-1 xen-4.17.1_04-1.1 on GA media SUSE / openSUSE Security Updates · Feb 4, 2026
- SUSE-SU-2023:2535-1 Security update for xen SUSE / openSUSE Security Updates · May 2, 2025
- WID-SEC-2023-1234 Xen: Schwachstelle ermöglicht Darstellen falscher Informationen BSI CERT-Bund (WID) · Sep 22, 2024