CVE-2016-5195

Description

A race condition was found in the way the Linux kernel's memory subsystem handled the copy-on-write (COW) breakage of private read-only memory mappings. An unprivileged, local user could use this flaw to gain write access to otherwise read-only memory mappings and thus increase their privileges on the system.

Security Bulletin

https://access.redhat.com/security/vulnerabilities/DirtyCow

Statement

This issue affects the Linux kernel packages as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, 6, 7 and MRG 2.x. This issue has been rated as having Important security impact.

Mitigation

Please see bug 1384344 comment #13 (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1384344#c13) for details on how to mitigate this issue.

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details

Info alert:Important note

CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Red HatNVDcve.org
Base Score7.877
Attack VectorLocalLocalLocal
Attack ComplexityLowHighHigh
Privileges RequiredLowLowLow
User InteractionNoneNoneNone
ScopeUnchangedUnchangedUnchanged
ConfidentialityHighHighHigh
Integrity ImpactHighHighHigh
Availability ImpactHighHighHigh

Vector

Red Hat: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Acknowledgements

Red Hat would like to thank Phil Oester for reporting this issue.

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