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xen — security advisory

Type: advisorySources: OSVAdvisory ID: ALPINE-CVE-2018-12893

An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.10.x. One of the fixes in XSA-260 added some safety checks to help prevent Xen livelocking with debug exceptions. Unfortunately, due to an oversight, at least one of these safety checks can be triggered by a guest. A malicious PV guest can crash Xen, leading to a Denial of Service. All Xen systems which have applied the XSA-260 fix are vulnerable. Only x86 systems are vulnerable. ARM systems are not vulnerable. Only x86 PV guests can exploit the vulnerability. x86 HVM and PVH guests cannot exploit the vulnerability. An attacker needs to be able to control hardware debugging facilities to exploit the vulnerability, but such permissions are typically available to unprivileged users.

Products
xen
Affected versions
Not specified
Fixed versions
4.10.1-r3, 4.11.0-r0, 4.7.6-r0, 4.8.4-r0, 4.9.3-r0
CVEs
CVE-2018-12893
Confirmed fixed CVEs
Not specified
Updated in this feed
31 Oct 2026, 21:57 UTC · Revision 1

Source evidence

ALPINE-CVE-2018-12893

core-osv · Original source

Published 2 Jul 2018, 17:29 UTC

An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.10.x. One of the fixes in XSA-260 added some safety checks to help prevent Xen livelocking with debug exceptions. Unfortunately, due to an oversight, at least one of these safety checks can be triggered by a guest. A malicious PV guest can crash Xen, leading to a Denial of Service. All Xen systems which have applied the XSA-260 fix are vulnerable. Only x86 systems are vulnerable. ARM systems are not vulnerable. Only x86 PV guests can exploit the vulnerability. x86 HVM and PVH guests cannot exploit the vulnerability. An attacker needs to be able to control hardware debugging facilities to exploit the vulnerability, but such permissions are typically available to unprivileged users.

osv:ALPINE-CVE-2018-12893

xen

Fixed versions: 4.11.0-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.11.0-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.11.0-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.11.0-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.11.0-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.11.0-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.11.0-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.11.0-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.11.0-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.11.0-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.11.0-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.11.0-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.11.0-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.11.0-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.11.0-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.7.6-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.8.4-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.9.3-r0

xen

Fixed versions: 4.10.1-r3

xen

Fixed versions: 4.11.0-r0

Complete source record
{
  "id": "d7f8c643790ddf02d44934cb8fd99f5d7674f601a57c6933fdcdfdd15ede86af",
  "url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/ALPINE-CVE-2018-12893",
  "method": "structured",
  "payload": {
    "kind": "advisory",
    "title": "ALPINE-CVE-2018-12893",
    "summary": "An issue was discovered in Xen through 4.10.x. One of the fixes in XSA-260 added some safety checks to help prevent Xen livelocking with debug exceptions. Unfortunately, due to an oversight, at least one of these safety checks can be triggered by a guest. A malicious PV guest can crash Xen, leading to a Denial of Service. All Xen systems which have applied the XSA-260 fix are vulnerable. Only x86 systems are vulnerable. ARM systems are not vulnerable. Only x86 PV guests can exploit the vulnerability. x86 HVM and PVH guests cannot exploit the vulnerability. An attacker needs to be able to control hardware debugging facilities to exploit the vulnerability, but such permissions are typically available to unprivileged users.",
    "evidence": "osv:ALPINE-CVE-2018-12893",
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    "severity": "medium",
    "structured": {
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      "aliases": [
        "ALPINE-CVE-2018-12893"
      ],
      "metrics": [
        {
          "type": "CVSS_V3",
          "score": "CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H"
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              ]
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          ],
          "package": {
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            "purl": "pkg:apk/alpine/xen?arch=source",
            "ecosystem": "Alpine:v3.9"
          },
          "database_specific": {
            "source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/alpine/ALPINE-CVE-2018-12893.json"
          },
          "ecosystem_specific": {}
        }
      ],
      "modified": "2026-10-23T17:17:55.210615442Z",
      "provider": "osv",
      "upstream": [
        "CVE-2018-12893"
      ],
      "references": [
        "https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2018-12893"
      ]
    },
    "related_cves": [
      {
        "value": "CVE-2018-12893",
        "evidence": "/upstream"
      }
    ],
    "security_relevant": true,
    "severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
  },
  "source_id": "core-osv",
  "document_id": 415018,
  "published_at": "2018-07-02T17:29:00.583+00:00"
}