# CVE-2012-4684: Denial of service in n/a

> Remote attackers can cause resource consumption and denial of service in Bitcoin clients by submitting modified signatures for circulating alerts.

- **Severity:** High 7.8 (`AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 12 Mar 2013
- **Updated:** 16 Sep 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-rc7m-hpcg-8c7c

## What is CVE-2012-4684?

CVE-2012-4684 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Bitcoin Bitcoin Core, published on 12 Mar 2013. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

The alert functionality in bitcoind and Bitcoin-Qt before 0.7.0 supports different character representations of the same signature data, but relies on a hash of this signature, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (resource consumption) via a valid modified signature for a circulating alert.

Weakness: CWE-399

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2012-4684?

It affects 4 products.


Products: Bitcoin Bitcoin-Qt, Bitcoin Bitcoin Core, Bitcoin Bitcoind, Bitcoin Wxbitcoin.

## How do I fix CVE-2012-4684?

No fix has been published for CVE-2012-4684 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2012-4684 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2012-4684 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Bitcoin Bitcoin Core

- [CVE-2013-2292](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2292/): Denial of service in n/a (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2016-10724](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2016-10724/): Denial of service in n/a (high 7.5)
- [CVE-2016-10725](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2016-10725/): Business logic in n/a (high 7.5)
- [CVE-2012-1910](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2012-1910/): Memory corruption in n/a (high 7.5)
- [CVE-2013-3220](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-3220/): Denial of service in n/a (medium 6.4)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2012-4684 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2012-4684 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Bitcoin Bitcoin Core, published on 12 Mar 2013. 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-2012-4684 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Bitcoin Bitcoin Core. 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-2012-4684/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2012-4684/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2012-4684
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2012-4684
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2012-4684

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2012-4684/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.