CVE-2013-1964
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedXen 4.0.x and 4.1.x incorrectly releases a grant reference when releasing a non-v1, non-transitive grant, which allows local guest administrators to cause a denial of service (host crash), obtain sensitive information, or possibly have other impacts via unspecified vectors.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceXen 4.0.x and 4.1.x contain a grant table management flaw where the hypervisor incorrectly releases a grant reference when handling non-v1, non-transitive grants. This memory management error allows a local guest administrator to potentially crash the host, leak sensitive information, or achieve unspecified privilege escalation.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data= 4.0.0= 4.0.1= 4.0.2= 4.0.3= 4.0.4= 4.1.0= 4.1.1= 4.1.2= 4.1.3= 4.1.4= 4.1.5CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Local
- Complexity
- M
- Authentication
- None
- Confidentiality
- Complete
- Integrity
- Complete
- Availability
- Complete
AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify the installed Xen hypervisor versionRun 'xm version' or 'xl version' to display the Xen version information, or check /usr/lib/xen for version indicatorsAffected if The version displayed is 4.0.0, 4.0.1, 4.0.2, 4.0.3, 4.0.4, 4.1.0, 4.1.1, 4.1.2, 4.1.3, 4.1.4, or 4.1.5
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Confirm grant table functionality is availableCheck xl info for grant support or review hypervisor boot parameters for gnttab module loadingAffected if Grant table support is present in the hypervisor configuration or feature list
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Identify guest domains with administrator accessRun xl list to enumerate all guest domains, then verify which guests have privileged or root-level access within the guest OSAffected if Any guest domain has an administrator or root user who could trigger the grant reference handling code path
The environment is affected if the Xen version is 4.0.0 through 4.1.5 inclusive, grant tables are enabled, and untrusted guest administrators exist.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataUpgrade Xen to version 4.1.4 or later (or to a current supported version) which contains the corrected grant reference handling logic, or implement network segmentation and strict VM placement controls to limit exposure.
- Consultation6.0 h
- Implementation12.0 h
- Testing8.0 h
- Review / QA4.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $8,448.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2013-1964 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2013-1964 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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