CVE-2013-2077
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, 4.1.x, and 4.2.x does not properly restrict the contents of a XRSTOR, which allows local PV guest users to cause a denial of service (unhandled exception and hypervisor crash) 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 hypervisor versions 4.0.x through 4.2.x fail to properly validate or restrict the contents handled by the XRSTOR instruction (x87 FPU state restore). This allows local paravirtualized guest users to trigger an unhandled exception by supplying malicious input to XRSTOR, causing the hypervisor to crash and resulting in a denial of service for all guests on the host.
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= 4.1.5= 4.2.0CVSS 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
- Adjacent
- Complexity
- M
- Authentication
- Single
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- Complete
AV:A/AC:M/Au:S/C:N/I:N/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 info' or 'xl info' and look for the 'xen_version' field, or check the output of 'uname -r' on the dom0 kernel if applicableAffected if The version falls within 4.0.0 through 4.2.0 (specifically 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, 4.1.5, 4.2.0)
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Determine if paravirtualized (PV) guests are runningList all running domains using 'xl list' or 'xm list' and check the 'type' column for 'pv' (paravirtualized) domains. PV domains are identified by not using HVM (hardware virtual machine) typeAffected if PV guests are actively running on the Xen host
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Verify x87 FPU state restore operations are in useMonitor for XRSTOR instruction usage within PV guest contexts. This can be observed through hypervisor logging or by checking if PV guest workloads involve x87 floating-point operationsAffected if PV guests are performing x87 FPU state restore operations using the XRSTOR instruction
If the Xen hypervisor version is 4.0.0 through 4.2.0 AND paravirtualized guests with x87 FPU operations are running, the environment is affected by this vulnerability.
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 dataApply the relevant Xen security patch (or upgrade to a patched Xen version) to properly validate XRSTOR operations. As a temporary measure, consider isolating untrusted PV guests or limiting their privileges until the patch can be applied.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing6.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2013-2077 — 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-2013-2077 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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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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