CVE Catalog

CVE-2026-23562

CriticalCVSS 9.4
Published: Updated: Translated: NVD NIST

Exploitation Probability (EPSS)

Low risk
0.14%

4th percentile - higher than 4% of all known CVEs

Summary

CVE-2026-23562 in XAPI (XenServer API) allows a vm-admin user to configure PCI passthrough, which is normally restricted to the pool-admin role. A missing permission check in one API grants unintended access to host hardware.

Risk Assessment

The organization faces unauthorized access to physical PCI devices (e.g., network cards, GPUs) by lower-privileged administrators, potentially leading to privilege escalation, VM isolation breaches, or data leakage.

Recommendation

Immediately update XAPI/XenServer to a version containing the fix for CVE-2026-23562 and review/restrict user roles, especially vm-admin, to the minimum necessary.

Original NVD description (English source)

[This CNA information record relates to multiple CVEs; the text explains which aspects/vulnerabilities correspond to which CVE.] XAPI can configure different users with different roles, using Role Based Access Control. For more details, see: https://docs.xenserver.com/en-us/xencenter/current-release/rbac-overview.html#rbac-roles The pool-admin role is fully privileged. Notably, users with this role can also SSH into the host as root. The other administrator roles are pool-operator, vm-power-admin and vm-admin, each of which are authorised to configure and manage various aspects of the system. Some settings are inadequately restricted, and can be set by a lower privilege of administrator than expected. * CVE-2026-23559: A vm-admin can set VBD.other_config:backend-local and turn arbitrary files in dom0 into VDIs (virtual disks) and give said disks to a VM they control. This is an arbitrary read and/or modify of files in dom0. * CVE-2026-23560: A vm-admin can set VM.other-config:is_system_domain and mark a VM as a system domain. System domains are ignored and left running during certain other host/pool operations, and may be hidden from view in tooling. * CVE-2026-23561: A vm-admin can set VM.other_config:storage_driver_domain and mark a VM as the storage domain for a particular host storage connection (PBD). Shutting down the VM can cause the PBD to be erroneously marked as unplugged when it is not. * CVE-2026-23562: Configuration of PCI passthrough is normally restricted to the pool-admin role. However one API was missing this check, allowing a vm-admin access to unintended host hardware. * CVE-2026-42486: A vm-admin can set the VM.platform:hvm_serial parameter, which should be restricted to the pool-admin role, as it can allow arbitrary dom0 file write.

Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS