# CVE-2012-3518: Denial of service in n/a

> Remote attackers can crash the Tor daemon via crafted vote or consensus documents due to improper handling of invalid flavor names.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.0 (`AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 26 Aug 2012
- **Updated:** 6 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2012-3518, GHSA-qcx3-c5rp-cj34

## What is CVE-2012-3518?

CVE-2012-3518 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Tor Tor, published on 26 Aug 2012. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

The networkstatus_parse_vote_from_string function in routerparse.c in Tor before 0.2.2.38 does not properly handle an invalid flavor name, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (out-of-bounds read and daemon crash) via a crafted (1) vote document or (2) consensus document.

Weakness: CWE-119 (Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2012-3518?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Tor Tor.

## How do I fix CVE-2012-3518?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2012-3518 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2012-3518 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Tor Tor

- [CVE-2010-1676](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2010-1676/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2009-0939](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-0939/): Tor before 0.2.0.34 treats incomplete IPv4 addresses as valid, which has unknown impact and attack vectors related to "Spec conformance," as (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2009-0414](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2009-0414/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2008-5398](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2008-5398/): Information disclosure in n/a (critical 9.3)
- [CVE-2011-2778](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2011-2778/): Memory corruption in n/a (high 7.6)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2012-3518 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2012-3518 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Tor Tor, published on 26 Aug 2012. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2012-3518 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Tor Tor. 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-2012-3518/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2012-3518/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2012-3518
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2012-3518
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2012-3518

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2012-3518/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.