# CVE-2012-5525: Denial of service in n/a

> Local PV guest administrators can crash the Xen hypervisor via a crafted GFN in the get_page_from_gfn hypercall, causing denial of service.

- **Severity:** Medium 4.7 (`AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C`)
- **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:** 13 Dec 2012
- **Updated:** 6 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** GHSA-wrrw-3jqq-qcvc

## What is CVE-2012-5525?

CVE-2012-5525 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Xen Xen, published on 13 Dec 2012. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

The get_page_from_gfn hypercall function in Xen 4.2 allows local PV guest OS administrators to cause a denial of service (crash) via a crafted GFN that triggers a buffer over-read.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2012-5525?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Xen Xen.

## How do I fix CVE-2012-5525?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2012-5525 being exploited?

It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2012-5525 exists.

Public exploit code:

- Linux DoS Xen 4.2.0 2012-5525 (metasploit)

## 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-2012-5525 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2012-5525 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Xen Xen, published on 13 Dec 2012. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2012-5525 exists.

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-2012-5525/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2012-5525/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2012-5525
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2012-5525
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2012-5525

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2012-5525/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.