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CVE-2009-0778

• Severity: high (CVSS 7.1 v2.0)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 4.6% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: yes
• Published: 2009-03-12 · updated 2026-06-16

Description

The icmp_send function in net/ipv4/icmp.c in the Linux kernel before 2.6.25, when configured as a router with a REJECT route, does not properly manage the Protocol Independent Destination Cache (aka DST) in some situations involving transmission of an ICMP Host Unreachable message, which allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (connectivity outage) by sending a large series of packets to many destination IP addresses within this REJECT route, related to an "rt_cache leak."

Affected products

• Linux kernel: through 2.6.24.7; 2.6.0, 2.6.0-test1, 2.6.0-test10, 2.6.0-test11, 2.6.0-test2, 2.6.0-test3 (+340)
• VMware ESX: 2.5.5, 3.0.3, 3.5, 4.0
• VMware Server: 2.0.0
• VMware vCenter: 4.0
• VMware Virtualcenter: 2.0.2, 2.5
• VMware Vma: 4.0

References

• http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=7c0ecc4c4f8fd90988aab8a95297b9c0038b6160
• http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2009/03/11/2
• http://secunia.com/advisories/33758
• http://secunia.com/advisories/37471
• http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.25
• http://www.redhat.com/support/errata/RHSA-2009-0326.html
• http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/507985/100/0/threaded
• http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/34084
• http://www.securitytracker.com/id?1021958
• http://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2009-0016.html
• http://www.vupen.com/english/advisories/2009/3316
• https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=485163

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