VulnerabilityPublished 6 Nov 2023Updated 8 Nov 2025

CVE-2023-5090: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 · Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions

Affects Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8Source CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.0 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 15:59 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

6.0Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 15% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: High
User Interaction: None
Scope: Changed
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: High

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable component is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities. Either: the attacker exploits the vulnerability by accessing the target system locally (e.g., keyboard, console), or remotely (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., tricking a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: High: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide significant (e.g., administrative) control over the vulnerable component that could affect component-wide settings and files.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Changed: An exploited vulnerability can affect resources beyond the security scope managed by the security authority of the vulnerable component. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are different and managed by different security authorities.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 6 Nov 2023
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2023-5090, organizations should: 1) Monitor Red Hat advisories closely and apply patches or updates as soon as they are released to fix the improper check in svm_set_x2apic_msr_interception(). 2) Restrict and audit privileged access within guest VMs to minimize the risk of an attacker gaining the necessary high privileges to exploit this vulnerability. 3) Implement strict isolation policies between guest VMs and the host to limit the impact of any guest VM compromise. 4) Use security-enhanced virtualization configurations, such as SELinux or AppArmor profiles, to enforce access controls on KVM components. 5) Monitor logs and system behavior for unusual APIC reset activities or unexpected VM crashes that could indicate exploitation attempts. 6) Consider deploying intrusion detection systems (IDS) tailored for virtualization environments to detect anomalous guest behavior. 7) Review and harden virtualization host configurations to reduce the attack surface, including disabling unnecessary features or interfaces that could be leveraged by attackers.

Description

A flaw was found in KVM. An improper check in svm_set_x2apic_msr_interception() may allow direct access to host x2apic msrs when the guest resets its apic, potentially leading to a denial of service condition.

Impact

For European organizations, the primary impact of CVE-2023-5090 is the potential for denial of service on critical virtualization hosts running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 with KVM. This can lead to downtime of multiple virtual machines, disrupting business operations, especially in sectors relying heavily on virtualization such as finance, telecommunications, government, and cloud service providers. The vulnerability could be exploited by a malicious insider or compromised guest VM with elevated privileges to destabilize the host, causing service interruptions and potential cascading failures in virtualized environments. While confidentiality and integrity are not directly impacted, the availability loss can affect service level agreements (SLAs), compliance with regulations requiring high availability, and operational continuity. Organizations using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 in production environments with KVM should consider this a medium-severity risk that could escalate if combined with other vulnerabilities or misconfigurations.

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 8 Nov 2025, 07:34 UTC

Technical details

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