Description
Xen 3.4, 4.0, and 4.1, when the guest OS has not registered a handler for a syscall or sysenter instruction, does not properly clear a flag for exception injection when injecting a General Protection Fault, which allows local PV guest OS users to cause a denial of service (guest crash) by later triggering an exception that would normally be handled within Xen.
Fixed in Linux distributions
Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.
Debian
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian 14 | xen | 4.1.3~rc1+hg-20120614.a9c0a89c08f2-1 | — |
| Debian 13 | xen | 4.1.3~rc1+hg-20120614.a9c0a89c08f2-1 | — |
| Debian 12 | xen | 4.1.3~rc1+hg-20120614.a9c0a89c08f2-1 | — |
| Debian 6.0 | xen | 4.0.1-5.2 | DSA-2501-1 |
Advisories 1
- DSA-2501-1 xen - several Debian Security (DSA / DLA) · Mar 9, 2026
References
- 55082 third-party-advisory
- GLSA-201309-24 vendor-advisory
- DSA-2501 vendor-advisory
- [Xen-announce] 20120612 Xen Security Advisory 8 (CVE-2012-0218) - syscall/enter guest DoS mailing-list