Security Bulletin: IBM SmartCloud Orchestrator - Nova compute DoS through ephemeral disk backing files (CVE-2013-6437)

Summary

By repeatedly creating snapshots, changing the os_type to a new random value, and
spawning new instances from the snapshot (and quickly deleting those instances), an authenticated user might generate lots of different ephemeral disk backing files. These files than fill up compute node disks, which potentially results in a Denial of Service against a Nova setup. Only Nova setups running the libvirt driver are affected.

Vulnerability Details

CVE ID:CVE-2013-6437

DESCRIPTION:
OpenStack Compute (Nova) is vulnerable to a denial of service, which is caused by an error when handling an image that has os_type metadata. By creating a snapshot of instance and deleting the original instance, an attacker might exploit this vulnerability to fill the disk and cause the system to crash.

CVSS:
CVSS Base Score: 5.0
CVSS Temporal Score_ __See _<https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/89848&gt;__ for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:N/A:P)

Affected Products and Versions

IBM SmartCloud Orchestrator V2.2 and 2.3

Remediation/Fixes

The recommended solution is to upgrade to IBM SmartCloud Orchestrator Version 2.3.0 Fix Pack 1 as soon as practical.

Workarounds and Mitigations

The exposure applies only to KVM regions.
Ensure that IBM SmartCloud Orchestrator end users do not have access to the compute nodes