CVE-2006-5331

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2017-10-29 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-19

Description

The altivec_unavailable_exception function in arch/powerpc/kernel/traps.c in the Linux kernel before 2.6.19 on 64-bit systems mishandles the case where CONFIG_ALTIVEC is defined and the CPU actually supports Altivec, but the Altivec support was not detected by the kernel, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (panic) by triggering execution of an Altivec instruction.

Affected products

Linux kernel: before 2.6.19 — fixed in 2.6.19

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 2.6.19. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=6c4841c2b6c32a134f9f36e5e08857138cc12b10
http://www.linuxgrill.com/anonymous/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.19
https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=213229
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/6c4841c2b6c32a134f9f36e5e08857138cc12b10
http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=6c4841c2b6c32a134f9f36e5e08857138cc12b10
http://www.linuxgrill.com/anonymous/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.19
https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=213229
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/6c4841c2b6c32a134f9f36e5e08857138cc12b10

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