Security Bulletin: Venom vulnerability affects IBM Flex System Manager (FSM) (CVE-2015-3456)

Summary

IBM Flex System Manager (FSM) is vulnerable to Venom: “Virtualized Environment Neglected Operation Manipulation.”

Vulnerability Details

Summary

IBM Flex System Manager (FSM) is vulnerable to Venom: “Virtualized Environment Neglected Operation Manipulation.”

Vulnerability Details:

CVE-ID: CVE-2015-3456

Description: QEMU is vulnerable to a buffer overflow, caused by improper bounds checking by the Floppy Disk Controller (FDC) emulation. By sending specially crafted FDC commands, a guest operating system attacker with access to the FDC I/O ports could overflow a buffer and execute arbitrary code on the system with root privileges. Note: This vulnerability is also being called VENOM.

CVSS Base Score: 7.7
CVSS Temporal Score: See http://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/103116 for current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (AV:A/AC:L/Au:S/C:C/I:C/A:C)

Affected products and versions

• Flex System Manager 1.3.3.x
• Flex System Manager 1.3.2.x
• Flex System Manager 1.3.1.x
• Flex System Manager 1.3.0.x
• Flex System Manager 1.2.1.x
• Flex System Manager 1.2.0.x
• Flex System Manager 1.1.x.x

Remediation/Fixes:

After you apply the fix, all guests (virtual machines) on the host need to be powered off and then powered back on (not just restarted) for the update to take effect. Note: It is not enough to restart the guests because a restarted guest would continue running using the same (old and not updated) QEMU binary. As an alternative it may also be possible to migrate guests away from the affected host, apply the fix on the host, and then migrate the guests back.

IBM recommends that you review your entire environment to identify vulnerable releases of the open-source hypervisor QEMU and virtualization infrastructures that utilize QEMU and take appropriate mitigation and remediation actions.

Workarounds and Mitigations:

None

References:

• Complete CVSS v2 Guide
• On-line Calculator v2

Related Information:
IBM Secure Engineering Web Portal
IBM Product Security Incident Response Blog

Acknowledgement

None

Change History
21 September 2015: Original Copy Published

• The CVSS Environment Score is customer environment specific and will ultimately impact the Overall CVSS Score. Customers can evaluate the impact of this vulnerability in their environments by accessing the links in the Reference section of this Security Bulletin.

Disclaimer

According to the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST), the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) is an “industry open standard designed to convey vulnerability severity and help to determine urgency and priority of response.” IBM PROVIDES THE CVSS SCORES “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. CUSTOMERS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF ANY ACTUAL OR POTENTIAL SECURITY VULNERABILITY.