# CVE-2021-28700: Denial of service in xen

> An attacker with control over a dom0less domain can exhaust system memory by bypassing configured limits, potentially causing a denial of service.

- **Severity:** Medium 4.9 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** An administrator
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 27 Aug 2021
- **Updated:** 3 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** ALPINE-CVE-2021-28700, DEBIAN-CVE-2021-28700, GHSA-whw9-2rv6-633x, UBUNTU-CVE-2021-28700

## What is CVE-2021-28700?

CVE-2021-28700 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Debian Debian Linux, published on 27 Aug 2021. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

xen/arm: No memory limit for dom0less domUs The dom0less feature allows an administrator to create multiple unprivileged domains directly from Xen. Unfortunately, the memory limit from them is not set. This allow a domain to allocate memory beyond what an administrator originally configured.

Weakness: CWE-770 (Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-28700?

It affects 3 products.


Products: Debian Debian Linux, Fedoraproject Fedora, Xen Xen.

## How do I fix CVE-2021-28700?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2021-28700 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-28700 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Debian Debian Linux

- [CVE-2015-3306](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2015-3306/): ProFTPD Improper Access Control (critical 10.0, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2025-49113](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-49113/): RoundCube Webmail Deserialization of Untrusted Data (critical 9.9, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-24061](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-24061/): GNU InetUtils Argument Injection (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2025-39682](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-39682/): Linux Kernel Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2024-9680](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-9680/): Mozilla Firefox Use-After-Free (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2021-28700 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2021-28700 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Debian Debian Linux, published on 27 Aug 2021. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-28700 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Debian Debian Linux. 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-2021-28700/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-28700/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-28700
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-28700
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2021-28700

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-28700/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.