CVE-2011-2184

Severity: high (CVSS 7.2 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: 2011-09-06 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-476

Description

The key_replace_session_keyring function in security/keys/process_keys.c in the Linux kernel before 2.6.39.1 does not initialize a certain structure member, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and OOPS) or possibly have unspecified other impact via a KEYCTL_SESSION_TO_PARENT argument to the keyctl function, a different vulnerability than CVE-2010-2960.

Affected products

Linux kernel: before 2.6.39.1 — fixed in 2.6.39.1

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 2.6.39.1. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

http://alt.swiecki.net/linux_kernel/sys_open-kmem_cache_alloc-2.6.39-rc4.txt
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=f7285b5d631fd6096b11c6af0058ed3a2b30ef4e
http://securityreason.com/securityalert/8371
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.39.1
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2011/06/03/2
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2011/06/06/2
https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/5/23/199
https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/5/24/502
https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/5/25/265
http://alt.swiecki.net/linux_kernel/sys_open-kmem_cache_alloc-2.6.39-rc4.txt
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=f7285b5d631fd6096b11c6af0058ed3a2b30ef4e
http://securityreason.com/securityalert/8371

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