# CVE-2012-3496: Denial of service in n/a

> A local guest kernel can crash the Xen host by triggering a BUG via invalid flags when translating paging mode is disabled.

- **Severity:** Medium 4.7 (`AV:L/AC:M/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:** 23 Nov 2012
- **Updated:** 6 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2012-3496, GHSA-gw25-hcr4-7p5h

## What is CVE-2012-3496?

CVE-2012-3496 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Citrix Xenserver, published on 23 Nov 2012. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

XENMEM_populate_physmap in Xen 4.0, 4.1, and 4.2, and Citrix XenServer 6.0.2 and earlier, when translating paging mode is not used, allows local PV OS guest kernels to cause a denial of service (BUG triggered and host crash) via invalid flags such as MEMF_populate_on_demand.

Weakness: CWE-16

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2012-3496?

It affects 2 products.


Products: Citrix Xenserver, Xen Xen.

## How do I fix CVE-2012-3496?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2012-3496 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2012-3496 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Citrix Xenserver

- [CVE-2014-4947](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2014-4947/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2018-14007](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2018-14007/): Path traversal in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2015-7705](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2015-7705/): Denial of service in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2016-5302](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2016-5302/): Auth bypass in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2017-12134](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-12134/): Memory corruption in n/a (high 8.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2012-3496 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2012-3496 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Citrix Xenserver, published on 23 Nov 2012. 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-2012-3496 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Citrix Xenserver. 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-2012-3496/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2012-3496/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2012-3496
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2012-3496
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2012-3496

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2012-3496/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.