# CVE-2012-4544: Denial of service in n/a

> Local guest administrators can cause a denial of service in the Xen hypervisor by providing a crafted kernel or ramdisk that exhausts domain 0 memory.

- **Severity:** Low 2.1 (`AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** An administrator
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 31 Oct 2012
- **Updated:** 6 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2012-4544, GHSA-5vgr-8hw2-wp3h, RHSA-2013:0241

## What is CVE-2012-4544?

CVE-2012-4544 is a low-severity denial of service vulnerability in Xen Xen, published on 31 Oct 2012. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

The PV domain builder in Xen 4.2 and earlier does not validate the size of the kernel or ramdisk (1) before or (2) after decompression, which allows local guest administrators to cause a denial of service (domain 0 memory consumption) via a crafted (a) kernel or (b) ramdisk.

Weakness: CWE-20 (Improper Input Validation)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2012-4544?

It affects 1 product.


| Package | Ecosystem | Affected | Fixed in |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `xen` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:5::server | All versions | 0:3.0.3-142.el5_9.1 |
| `xen-debuginfo` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:5::server | All versions | 0:3.0.3-142.el5_9.1 |
| `xen-libs` | Red Hat:enterprise_linux:5::server | All versions | 0:3.0.3-142.el5_9.1 |
| `xen` | Red Hat:rhel_virtualization:5::server | All versions | 0:3.0.3-142.el5_9.1 |
| `xen-debuginfo` | Red Hat:rhel_virtualization:5::server | All versions | 0:3.0.3-142.el5_9.1 |
| `xen-devel` | Red Hat:rhel_virtualization:5::server | All versions | 0:3.0.3-142.el5_9.1 |

Products: Xen Xen.

## How do I fix CVE-2012-4544?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2012-4544 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2012-4544 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Xen Xen

- [CVE-2017-10912](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-10912/): Privilege escalation in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2017-10918](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-10918/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2017-10920](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-10920/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2017-10921](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-10921/): Memory corruption in n/a (critical 10.0)
- [CVE-2025-27466](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-27466/): Mutiple vulnerabilities in the Viridian interface (critical 9.8)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2012-4544 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2012-4544 is a low-severity denial of service vulnerability in Xen Xen, published on 31 Oct 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-2012-4544 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Xen Xen. 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-2012-4544/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2012-4544/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2012-4544
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2012-4544
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2012-4544

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2012-4544/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.