CVE-2010-4243

Severity: medium (CVSS 4.9 v2.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.9% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2011-01-22 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-400

Description

fs/exec.c in the Linux kernel before 2.6.37 does not enable the OOM Killer to assess use of stack memory by arrays representing the (1) arguments and (2) environment, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (memory consumption) via a crafted exec system call, aka an "OOM dodging issue," a related issue to CVE-2010-3858.

Affected products

Linux kernel: before 2.6.37 — fixed in 2.6.37

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 2.6.37. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=3c77f845722158206a7209c45ccddc264d19319c
http://grsecurity.net/~spender/64bit_dos.c
http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/Kernel/2010-11/msg13278.html
http://lkml.org/lkml/2010/8/27/429
http://lkml.org/lkml/2010/8/29/206
http://lkml.org/lkml/2010/8/30/138
http://lkml.org/lkml/2010/8/30/378
http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2010/11/22/15
http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2010/11/22/6
http://secunia.com/advisories/42884
http://secunia.com/advisories/46397
http://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/15619

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