Questions about guest escape, host escape and VM escape

Masahiro — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 09:59:34 GMT

I am not confident enough in my understanding about differences between guest escape, host escape and VM escape. The followings are my understanding. Are they correct?

Guest escape is an attack that an account of a guest OS on the host OS manipulates another guest OS on it.
Host escape is an attack that an account of a guest OS on the host OS manipulates the host OS and is also called "VM escape".

Re: Questions about guest escape, host escape and VM escape

bkwalker — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 02:09:33 GMT

I'm not sure that the terms are terribly well defined or useful. VM Escape is a well used term and IMO is the same things as Guest Escape. Host Escape could use some definition as well, perhaps that's referring to unintended/malicious manipulation of a guest OS from the host? However the host OS is presumed to have full control over the guest OS anyway, so I'm not sure that 'escape' is the right term.

This might help along with the CVE's referenced: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine_escape

topic Questions about guest escape, host escape and VM escape in Threats

Questions about guest escape, host escape and VM escape

Re: Questions about guest escape, host escape and VM escape