CVE-2006-5755

Severity: medium (CVSS 4.9 v2.0)
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: 2006-12-31 · updated 2026-06-16

Description

Linux kernel before 2.6.18, when running on x86_64 systems, does not properly save or restore EFLAGS during a context switch, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (crash) by causing SYSENTER to set an NT flag, which can trigger a crash on the IRET of the next task.

Affected products

Linux kernel: through 2.6.17

References

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commitdiff%3Bh=658fdbef66e5e9be79b457edc2cbbb3add840aa9
http://kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commitdiff%3Bh=658fdbef66e5e9be79b457edc2cbbb3add840aa9
http://secunia.com/advisories/24098
http://secunia.com/advisories/25691
http://secunia.com/advisories/26620
http://secunia.com/advisories/26994
http://secunia.com/advisories/32485
http://www.debian.org/security/2007/dsa-1381
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.18
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/snapshots/patch-2.6.18-git13.log
http://www.mandriva.com/security/advisories?name=MDKSA-2007:171
http://www.redhat.com/support/errata/RHSA-2008-0957.html

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