What is CVE-2012-4684?

CVE-2012-4684 is a vulnerability in Bitcoin Core, classified under CWE-399. Published 2013-03-12.

Is CVE-2012-4684 known to be exploited?

3 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

Vulnerability in Bitcoin Core

CVE-2012-4684

The alert functionality in bitcoind and Bitcoin-Qt before 0.7.0 supports different character representations of the same signature data, but relies on a hash of this signature, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (resource consumption) via a valid modified signature for a circulating alert.

Published 2013-03-12 · last modified 2026-06-16.

CVSS v2 metric

CVSS v2 base score 7.8 (High). Vector: AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C. This CVE predates CVSS v3 and has no v3 score from NVD.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.029 (86.2th percentile), scored 2026-09-30.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 86th percentile — 86.2% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.029 · newest: 0.029 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Bitcoin Core — versions 0.3.4, 0.3.5, 0.3.8
Bitcoin Bitcoind — versions 0.6.3
Bitcoin Bitcoin-Qt — versions 0.6.3
Bitcoin Wxbitcoin — versions 0.3.4, 0.3.5, 0.3.8

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-399

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2012-4684?: CVE-2012-4684 is a vulnerability in Bitcoin Core, classified under CWE-399. Published 2013-03-12.
Is CVE-2012-4684 known to be exploited?: 3 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.