CVE-2010-3079: Null Pointer Dereference
First published: Wed Sep 08 2010(Updated: )
Description of problem: It requires debugfs to be mounted on a local system $ mount | grep debugfs none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw) none on /var/lib/ureadahead/debugfs type debugfs (rw,relatime) Tested with Ubuntu Maverick 10.04.1 with kernel 2.6.32-24-generic-pae. It's probably not exploitable in any meaningful way, although it produces page fault in kernel mode, and makes subsequent processes opening /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/set_ftrace_filter (or set_ftrace_notrace) unkillable, so it's a little bit of a DoS (or at least, annoyance). Found via one of Tavis Ormandy's tools, I just quickly analyzed it and provided a testcase. Acknowledgements: Red Hat would like to thank Robert Swiecki of Google Security Team for reporting this issue.
Credit: secalert@redhat.com
| Affected Software | Affected Version | How to fix |
|---|---|---|
| debian/linux-2.6 | ||
| Linux Kernel | <2.6.35.5 | |
| Ubuntu Linux | =9.10 | |
| Ubuntu Linux | =10.04 | |
| Ubuntu Linux | =10.10 | |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop with Beagle | =11 | |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability | =11-sp1 | |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server | =11 | |
| Ubuntu | =9.10 | |
| Ubuntu | =10.04 | |
| Ubuntu | =10.10 |
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Reference Links
- http://secunia.com/advisories/42758
- http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/43684
- http://www.vupen.com/english/advisories/2011/0070
- http://www.vupen.com/english/advisories/2011/0298
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=631623
- http://www.redhat.com/support/errata/RHSA-2010-0842.html
- http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2010-10/msg00003.html
- http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2011-02/msg00000.html
- http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-1041-1
- http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=9c55cb12c1c172e2d51e85fbb5a4796ca86b77e7
- http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.35.5
- https://launchpad.net/bugs/cve/CVE-2010-3079
- http://git.kernel.org/tip/9c55cb12c1c172e2d51e85fbb5a4796ca86b77e7
- http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff_plain;h=9c55cb12c1c172e2d51e85fbb5a4796ca86b77e7
- https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2010-0842.html
- https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2010-3079
- https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2010-3079
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2010-3079
- https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2010-3079
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the severity of CVE-2010-3079?
CVE-2010-3079 is classified as a medium severity vulnerability.
How does CVE-2010-3079 affect users?
CVE-2010-3079 can lead to local privilege escalation if debugfs is mounted.
How do I fix CVE-2010-3079?
To fix CVE-2010-3079, ensure that debugfs is not mounted or update your kernel to a secure version.
Which systems are affected by CVE-2010-3079?
CVE-2010-3079 affects various Linux kernel versions and distributions including Ubuntu and SUSE.
What is the impact of CVE-2010-3079?
The impact of CVE-2010-3079 is the potential for unauthorized access to kernel functionalities by a local user.
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