CVE-2010-4079

Severity: low (CVSS 1.9 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: 2010-11-29 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-200

Description

The ivtvfb_ioctl function in drivers/media/video/ivtv/ivtvfb.c in the Linux kernel before 2.6.36-rc8 does not properly initialize a certain structure member, which allows local users to obtain potentially sensitive information from kernel stack memory via an FBIOGET_VBLANK ioctl call.

Affected products

Debian Linux: 5.0
Linux kernel: before 2.6.36; 2.6.36, 2.6.36-rc1, 2.6.36-rc2, 2.6.36-rc3, 2.6.36-rc4, 2.6.36-rc5 (+2) — fixed in 2.6.36

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 2.6.36. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=405707985594169cfd0b1d97d29fcb4b4c6f2ac9
http://lkml.org/lkml/2010/9/15/393
http://secunia.com/advisories/42890
http://www.debian.org/security/2010/dsa-2126
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/testing/v2.6.36/ChangeLog-2.6.36-rc8
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2010/09/25/2
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2010/10/06/6
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2010/10/07/1
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2010/10/25/3
http://www.redhat.com/support/errata/RHSA-2010-0958.html
http://www.redhat.com/support/errata/RHSA-2011-0007.html
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/45062

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