CVE-2010-4527

Severity: medium (CVSS 6.9 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: 2011-01-13 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-120

Description

The load_mixer_volumes function in sound/oss/soundcard.c in the OSS sound subsystem in the Linux kernel before 2.6.37 incorrectly expects that a certain name field ends with a '\0' character, which allows local users to conduct buffer overflow attacks and gain privileges, or possibly obtain sensitive information from kernel memory, via a SOUND_MIXER_SETLEVELS ioctl 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=d81a12bc29ae4038770e05dce4ab7f26fd5880fb
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2011-02/msg00002.html
http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2010/12/31/1
http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2010/12/31/4
http://secunia.com/advisories/42765
http://secunia.com/advisories/43291
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.37
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/45629
http://www.vupen.com/english/advisories/2011/0375
http://xorl.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/cve-2010-4527-linux-kernel-oss-sound-card-driver-buffer-overflow/
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=667615
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=d81a12bc29ae4038770e05dce4ab7f26fd5880fb

Get alerted when CVE-2010-4527 or the next vulnerability affects your stack