# CVE-2017-17044: Denial of service in n/a

> A guest OS user can cause a host OS hang via an infinite loop triggered by mishandled Populate on Demand errors in Xen.

- **Severity:** Medium 6.5 (`CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **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:** 28 Nov 2017
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** ALPINE-CVE-2017-17044, DEBIAN-CVE-2017-17044, GHSA-pfw4-6v7q-26m4, UBUNTU-CVE-2017-17044

## What is CVE-2017-17044?

CVE-2017-17044 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Xen Xen, published on 28 Nov 2017. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.9.x allowing HVM guest OS users to cause a denial of service (infinite loop and host OS hang) by leveraging the mishandling of Populate on Demand (PoD) errors.

Weakness: CWE-835 (Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition), CWE-755 (Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions), CWE-754 (Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2017-17044?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Xen Xen.

## How do I fix CVE-2017-17044?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2017-17044 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2017-17044 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-2017-17044 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2017-17044 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Xen Xen, published on 28 Nov 2017. 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-2017-17044 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-2017-17044/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-17044/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2017-17044
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2017-17044
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2017-17044

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2017-17044/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.