libvirt: XML Parsing Before ACL Causes Memory Exhaustion DoS
CVE-2025-12748 Published on November 11, 2025
Libvirt: denial of service in xml parsing
A flaw was discovered in libvirt in the XML file processing. More specifically, the parsing of user provided XML files was performed before the ACL checks. A malicious user with limited permissions could exploit this flaw by submitting a specially crafted XML file, causing libvirt to allocate too much memory on the host. The excessive memory consumption could lead to a libvirt process crash on the host, resulting in a denial-of-service condition.
Vulnerability Analysis
CVE-2025-12748 is exploitable with local system access, and requires small amount of user privileges. This vulnerability is considered to have a low attack complexity. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to have no impact on confidentiality and integrity, and a high impact on availability.
Timeline
Reported to Red Hat.
Made public.
Weakness Type
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
The software allocates a reusable resource or group of resources on behalf of an actor without imposing any restrictions on the size or number of resources that can be allocated, in violation of the intended security policy for that actor.
Products Associated with CVE-2025-12748
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Exploit Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) scores estimate the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. The percentile shows you how this score compares to all other vulnerabilities.