CVE-2019-19338

MEDIUM
5.5
CVSS Score
Published: July 13, 2020 at 04:04 PM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 02:26 AM UTC
2 products affected across 2 vendorsLinux KernelEnterprise Linux

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Severity
MEDIUM5.5
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.5%

Description

A flaw was found in the fix for CVE-2019-11135, in the Linux upstream kernel versions before 5.5 where, the way Intel CPUs handle speculative execution of instructions when a TSX Asynchronous Abort (TAA) error occurs. When a guest is running on a host CPU affected by the TAA flaw (TAA_NO=0), but is not affected by the MDS issue (MDS_NO=1), the guest was to clear the affected buffers by using a VERW instruction mechanism. But when the MDS_NO=1 bit was exported to the guests, the guests did not use the VERW mechanism to clear the affected buffers. This issue affects guests running on Cascade Lake CPUs and requires that host has 'TSX' enabled. Confidentiality of data is the highest threat associated with this vulnerability.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

v < 5.5
Affected range stops below 5.5, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet. What the record does show:

CVSS

Attack Vector
LOCAL
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
LOW
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
HIGH
Integrity
NONE
Availability
NONE
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusMODIFIED
CWE
CWE-203CWE-385

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