The Xen Project has released one or more Xen security advisories (XSAs). The security of Qubes OS is not affected.

XSAs that DO affect the security of Qubes OS

The following XSAs do affect the security of Qubes OS:

• (none)

XSAs that DO NOT affect the security of Qubes OS

The following XSAs do not affect the security of Qubes OS, and no user action is necessary:

• XSA-477
  • This XSA affects only HVMs with shadow paging and tracing enabled.
• XSA-478
  • This XSA affects only XAPI, which is an alternative toolstack. Qubes OS uses libxl instead of XAPI.
• XSA-479
  • This XSA affects only in-VM isolation, which Qubes OS does not rely on for security. We will still provide the fix for this issue at a later date, but it will not be accompanied by a Qubes security bulletin (QSB).

About this announcement

Qubes OS uses the Xen hypervisor as part of its architecture. When the Xen Project publicly discloses a vulnerability in the Xen hypervisor, they issue a notice called a Xen security advisory (XSA). Vulnerabilities in the Xen hypervisor sometimes have security implications for Qubes OS. When they do, we issue a notice called a Qubes security bulletin (QSB). (QSBs are also issued for non-Xen vulnerabilities.) However, QSBs can provide only positive confirmation that certain XSAs do affect the security of Qubes OS. QSBs cannot provide negative confirmation that other XSAs do not affect the security of Qubes OS. Therefore, we also maintain an XSA tracker, which is a comprehensive list of all XSAs publicly disclosed to date, including whether each one affects the security of Qubes OS. When new XSAs are published, we add them to the XSA tracker and publish a notice like this one in order to inform Qubes users that a new batch of XSAs has been released and whether each one affects the security of Qubes OS.