because thunderbird latest version breaks enigmail.

Demi M. Obenour:
> On 2019-10-31 12:12, Marek Marczykowski-Górecki wrote:
>> Dear Qubes Community,
>>
>> We have just published Qubes Security Bulletin (QSB) #052: Xen issues 
>> affecting PCI passthrough and PV domains
>>  (XSA-299, XSA-302). The text of this QSB is reproduced below. This QSB and
>> its accompanying signatures will always be available in the Qubes
>> Security Pack (qubes-secpack).
>>
>> View QSB #052 in the qubes-secpack:
>>
>> https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-secpack/blob/master/QSBs/qsb-052-2019.txt
>>
>> Learn about the qubes-secpack, including how to obtain, verify, and read
>> it:
>>
>> https://www.qubes-os.org/security/pack/
>>
>> View all past QSBs:
>>
>> https://www.qubes-os.org/security/bulletins/
>>
>> View the Xen Security Advisory (XSA) Tracker:
>>
>> https://www.qubes-os.org/security/xsa/
>>
>> ```
>>
>>
>>              ---===[ Qubes Security Bulletin #52 ]===---
>>
>>                              2019-10-31
>>
>>
>>     Xen issues affecting PCI passthrough and PV domains (XSA-299, XSA-302)
>>
>> Summary
>> ========
>>
>> On 2019-10-31, the Xen Security Team published the following Xen
>> Security Advisories (XSAs):
>>
>>
>> XSA-299 [1] "Issues with restartable PV type change operations":
>> | To avoid using shadow pagetables for PV guests, Xen exposes the actual
>> | hardware pagetables to the guest.  In order to prevent the guest from
>> | modifying these page tables directly, Xen keeps track of how pages are
>> | used using a type system; pages must be "promoted" before being used
>> | as a pagetable, and "demoted" before being used for any other type.
>> | Xen also allows for "recursive" promotions: i.e., an operating system
>> | promoting a page to an L4 pagetable may end up causing pages to be
>> | promoted to L3s, which may in turn cause pages to be promoted to L2s,
>> | and so on.  These operations may take an arbitrarily large amount of
>> | time, and so must be re-startable.
>> |
>> | Unfortunately, making recursive pagetable promotion and demotion
>> | operations restartable is incredibly complicated, and the code
>> | contains several races which, if triggered, can cause Xen to drop or
>> | retain extra type counts, potentially allowing guests to get write
>> | access to in-use pagetables.
>> |
>> | A malicious PV guest administrator may be able to escalate their
>> | privilege to that of the host.
>>
>> XSA-302 [2] "passed through PCI devices may corrupt host memory after
>> deassignment":
>> | When a PCI device is assigned to an untrusted domain, it is possible
>> | for that domain to program the device to DMA to an arbitrary address.
>> | The IOMMU is used to protect the host from malicious DMA by making
>> | sure that the device addresses can only target memory assigned to the
>> | guest. However, when the guest domain is torn down the device is
>> | assigned back to dom0, thus allowing any in-flight DMA to potentially
>> | target critical host data.
>> |
>> | An untrusted domain with access to a physical device can DMA into host
>> | memory, leading to privilege escalation.
>>
>>
>> Impact
>> =======
>>
>> XSA-299 applies only to PV domains. Most of the domains in Qubes 4.0 are
>> PVH or HVM domains and are therefore not affected by XSA-299. However,
>> PV domains are still supported in Qubes 4.0, and they are specifically
>> used to host Qemu-instance-supporting HVM domains.
>>
>> In the default Qubes 4.0 setup, several attacks would have to be chained
>> together in order to exploit this vulnerability. Specifically, an
>> attacker would have to:
>>
>> 1. Take control of an HVM domain, e.g., sys-usb, sys-net, or a
>>    user-created HVM domain. (Most user domains are PVH and are therefore
>>    not affected.)
>>
>> 2. Successfully attack a Qemu instance running in an associated PV
>>    stubdomain.
>>
>> 3. Finally, find some way to exploit the vulnerability described in
>>    XSA-299.
>>
>> Moreover, since this vulnerability is a race condition, it is an
>> unreliable attack vector in real world scenarios.
>>
>> XSA-302 also affects a limited set of domains in Qubes, namely, only
>> those with PCI devices assigned (sys-net and sys-usb in the default
>> configuration).
>>
>> In order to exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would have to
>> control a cooperating device that could be programmed to perform a DMA
>> (direct memory access) attack with a sufficient delay (on the order of
>> seconds) such that the device had been reassigned to dom0 by the time
>> the attack occured.
>>
>> Depending on internal connections, it may be also necessary for the
>> cooperating device to lack proper support for Function Level Reset
>> (FLR). (Most USB controllers do, in fact, lack proper support for FLR.)
>>
>> While XSA-299 is unreliable to exploit in practice, XSA-302 can be
>> reliably exploited so long as all the aforementioned conditions are met.
>>
>>
>> Discussion
>> ===========
>>
>> The patches below isolate PCI devices out of dom0 using IOMMU, even
>> after those devices have been de-assigned from other domains (typically
>> less trusted domains like sys-net and sys-usb).
>>
>> However, PCI devices can still perform DMA into most of the host memory
>> during early system startup (before dom0 assigns them to specific
>> domains). If the attacker were to program such a device to perform a DMA
>> attack in this window of opportunity during system startup, the
>> attacker could still compromise the system, even with the XSA-302
>> patches applied.
>>
>> In practice, this means that devices containing internal writable
>> firmware or configuration storage are worse for system security than
>> those that have read-only storage and require firmware to be loaded
>> externally by a driver. Many people consider devices that require
>> loading "firmware blobs" to be less freedom-friendly, but the effect on
>> system trustworthiness is exactly the opposite. Such devices are
>> actually more trustworthy than those that have (possibly mutable)
>> firmware stored internally.
>>
>> In addition, it's easier to reason about the firmware when it is
>> accessible to the user. Even if the firmware is in a binary form, it is
>> at least possible to verify its authenticity and that it wasn't modified
>> maliciously to target your specific device (e.g., by comparing hashes
>> against a public database). Naturally, a device with open-source
>> firmware (still loaded externally) would be even better. In the vast
>> majority of cases, however, a device that doesn't require loading
>> external firmware actually still has such firmware -- it's just hidden
>> inside and impossible to attest.
>>
>>
>> Patching
>> =========
>>
>> The specific packages that resolve the problems discussed in this
>> bulletin are as follows:
>>
>>   For Qubes OS 4.0:
>>   - Xen packages version 4.8.5-11
>>
>> The packages are to be installed in dom0 via the Qubes VM Manager or via
>> the qubes-dom0-update command as follows:
>>
>>   For updates from the stable repository (not immediately available):
>>   $ sudo qubes-dom0-update
>>
>>   For updates from the security-testing repository:
>>   $ sudo qubes-dom0-update --enablerepo=qubes-dom0-security-testing
>>
>> These packages will migrate from the security-testing repository to the
>> current (stable) repository over the next two weeks after being tested
>> by the community.
>>
>> If you use Anti Evil Maid, you will need to reseal your secret
>> passphrase to new PCR values, as PCR18+19 will change due to the new
>> Xen binaries.
>>
>> Credits
>> ========
>>
>> See the original Xen Security Advisories.
>>
>>
>> References
>> ===========
>>
>> [1] https://xenbits.xen.org/xsa/advisory-299.html
>> [2] https://xenbits.xen.org/xsa/advisory-302.html
>>
>>
> 
> Enigmail reports that this message has a bad signature.  Is this
> because I am using an incorrect key to verify it?
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Demi
> 

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