CVE-2008-3534

Severity: medium (CVSS 4.9 v2.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.5% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2008-08-08 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-400

Description

The shmem_delete_inode function in mm/shmem.c in the tmpfs implementation in the Linux kernel before 2.6.26.1 allows local users to cause a denial of service (system crash) via a certain sequence of file create, remove, and overwrite operations, as demonstrated by the insserv program, related to allocation of "useless pages" and improper maintenance of the i_blocks count.

Affected products

Canonical Ubuntu Linux: 6.06, 7.10, 8.04
Debian Linux: 4.0
Linux kernel: before 2.6.26.1 — fixed in 2.6.26.1

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 2.6.26.1. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-2.6.26.y.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=14fcc23fdc78e9d32372553ccf21758a9bd56fa1
http://lkml.org/lkml/2008/7/26/71
http://secunia.com/advisories/31881
http://secunia.com/advisories/32190
http://secunia.com/advisories/32393
http://www.debian.org/security/2008/dsa-1636
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.26.1
http://www.redhat.com/support/errata/RHSA-2008-0857.html
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/31134
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-659-1
https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/44489
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-2.6.26.y.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=14fcc23fdc78e9d32372553ccf21758a9bd56fa1

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