CVE-2011-2918

Published: 25 August 2011

The Performance Events subsystem in the Linux kernel before 3.1 does not properly handle event overflows associated with PERF_COUNT_SW_CPU_CLOCK events, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (system hang) via a crafted application.

From the Ubuntu security team

The performance counter subsystem did not correctly handle certain counters. A local attacker could exploit this to crash the system, leading to a denial of service.

Priority

Medium

CVSS 3 base score: 5.5

Status

Notes

https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/7/27/337 (reproducer)
https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/7/28/284 (fix)

mainline fix: a8b0ca17b80e92faab46ee7179ba9e99ccb61233
stable fix: 462fee3af72df0de7b60b96c525ffe8baf4db0f0
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-3.0.y.git;a=commit;h=462fee3af72df0de7b60b96c525ffe8baf4db0f0

References

• https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2011-2918
• http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2011/08/15/4
• https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-1202-1
• https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-1204-1
• https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-1203-1
• https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-1208-1
• https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-1212-1
• https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-1211-1
• https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-1216-1
• https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-1219-1
• https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-1218-1
• https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-1227-1
• https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-1256-1
• NVD
• Launchpad
• Debian

Bugs

• https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=730706
• https://launchpad.net/bugs/834121