# CVE-2010-4255: Denial of service in n/a

> Guest OS users can cause a host OS denial of service via crafted memory access in Xen hypervisor when paravirtualization is enabled.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.1 (`AV:A/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 25 Jan 2011
- **Updated:** 7 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2010-4255, GHSA-3x4p-cw57-cgf8

## What is CVE-2010-4255?

CVE-2010-4255 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 25 Jan 2011. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

The fixup_page_fault function in arch/x86/traps.c in Xen 4.0.1 and earlier on 64-bit platforms, when paravirtualization is enabled, does not verify that kernel mode is used to call the handle_gdt_ldt_mapping_fault function, which allows guest OS users to cause a denial of service (host OS BUG_ON) via a crafted memory access.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2010-4255?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Citrix Xen.

## How do I fix CVE-2010-4255?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2010-4255 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2010-4255 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in n/a

- [CVE-2011-1898](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2011-1898/): Privilege escalation in n/a (high 7.4)
- [CVE-2008-5716](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2008-5716/): Missing authorization in n/a (high 7.2)
- [CVE-2008-4405](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2008-4405/): Missing authorization in n/a (high 7.2)
- [CVE-2011-1583](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2011-1583/): Integer overflow in n/a (medium 6.9)
- [CVE-2010-4238](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2010-4238/): Denial of service in n/a (medium 5.5)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2010-4255 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2010-4255 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 25 Jan 2011. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2010-4255 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: n/a. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2010-4255/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2010-4255/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2010-4255
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2010-4255
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2010-4255

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2010-4255/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.