Unrated severityNVD Advisory· Published Jan 5, 2024· Updated Nov 4, 2025
x86: BTC/SRSO fixes not fully effective
CVE-2023-46836
Description
The fixes for XSA-422 (Branch Type Confusion) and XSA-434 (Speculative Return Stack Overflow) are not IRQ-safe. It was believed that the mitigations always operated in contexts with IRQs disabled.
However, the original XSA-254 fix for Meltdown (XPTI) deliberately left interrupts enabled on two entry paths; one unconditionally, and one conditionally on whether XPTI was active.
As BTC/SRSO and Meltdown affect different CPU vendors, the mitigations are not active together by default. Therefore, there is a race condition whereby a malicious PV guest can bypass BTC/SRSO protections and launch a BTC/SRSO attack against Xen.
AI Insight
LLM-synthesized narrative grounded in this CVE's description and references.
Affected products
30- osv-coords28 versionspkg:rpm/opensuse/xen&distro=openSUSE%20Leap%2015.4pkg:rpm/opensuse/xen&distro=openSUSE%20Leap%2015.5pkg:rpm/opensuse/xen&distro=openSUSE%20Leap%20Micro%205.3pkg:rpm/opensuse/xen&distro=openSUSE%20Leap%20Micro%205.4pkg:rpm/opensuse/xen&distro=openSUSE%20Tumbleweedpkg:rpm/suse/xen&distro=SUSE%20Enterprise%20Storage%207.1pkg:rpm/suse/xen&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20High%20Performance%20Computing%2015%20SP1-LTSSpkg:rpm/suse/xen&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20High%20Performance%20Computing%2015%20SP2-LTSSpkg:rpm/suse/xen&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20High%20Performance%20Computing%2015%20SP3-ESPOSpkg:rpm/suse/xen&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20High%20Performance%20Computing%2015%20SP3-LTSSpkg:rpm/suse/xen&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Micro%205.1pkg:rpm/suse/xen&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Micro%205.2pkg:rpm/suse/xen&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Micro%205.3pkg:rpm/suse/xen&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Micro%205.4pkg:rpm/suse/xen&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Micro%205.5pkg:rpm/suse/xen&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Module%20for%20Basesystem%2015%20SP4pkg:rpm/suse/xen&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Module%20for%20Basesystem%2015%20SP5pkg:rpm/suse/xen&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Module%20for%20Server%20Applications%2015%20SP4pkg:rpm/suse/xen&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Module%20for%20Server%20Applications%2015%20SP5pkg:rpm/suse/xen&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Server%2012%20SP5pkg:rpm/suse/xen&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Server%2015%20SP1-LTSSpkg:rpm/suse/xen&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Server%2015%20SP2-LTSSpkg:rpm/suse/xen&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Server%2015%20SP3-LTSSpkg:rpm/suse/xen&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Server%20for%20SAP%20Applications%2012%20SP5pkg:rpm/suse/xen&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Server%20for%20SAP%20Applications%2015%20SP1pkg:rpm/suse/xen&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Server%20for%20SAP%20Applications%2015%20SP2pkg:rpm/suse/xen&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Server%20for%20SAP%20Applications%2015%20SP3pkg:rpm/suse/xen&distro=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Software%20Development%20Kit%2012%20SP5
< 4.16.5_08-150400.4.40.1+ 27 more
- (no CPE)range: < 4.16.5_08-150400.4.40.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.17.2_08-150500.3.15.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.16.5_08-150400.4.40.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.16.5_08-150400.4.40.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.18.0_02-1.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.14.6_08-150300.3.60.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.12.4_42-150100.3.98.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.13.5_08-150200.3.83.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.14.6_08-150300.3.60.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.14.6_08-150300.3.60.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.14.6_08-150300.3.60.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.14.6_08-150300.3.60.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.16.5_08-150400.4.40.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.16.5_08-150400.4.40.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.17.2_08-150500.3.15.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.16.5_08-150400.4.40.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.17.2_08-150500.3.15.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.16.5_08-150400.4.40.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.17.2_08-150500.3.15.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.12.4_42-3.100.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.12.4_42-150100.3.98.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.13.5_08-150200.3.83.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.14.6_08-150300.3.60.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.12.4_42-3.100.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.12.4_42-150100.3.98.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.13.5_08-150200.3.83.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.14.6_08-150300.3.60.1
- (no CPE)range: < 4.12.4_42-3.100.1
Patches
Vulnerability mechanics
References
1News mentions
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