CVE-2010-4256

Severity: low (CVSS 2.1 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: 2011-01-25 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-20

Description

The pipe_fcntl function in fs/pipe.c in the Linux kernel before 2.6.37 does not properly determine whether a file is a named pipe, which allows local users to cause a denial of service via an F_SETPIPE_SZ fcntl call.

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=c66fb347946ebdd5b10908866ecc9fa05ee2cf3d
http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2010/11/30/6
http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2010/11/30/9
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.37
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=c66fb347946ebdd5b10908866ecc9fa05ee2cf3d
http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2010/11/30/6
http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2010/11/30/9
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.37

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