CVE-2011-2479

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
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: 2013-03-01 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-399

Description

The Linux kernel before 2.6.39 does not properly create transparent huge pages in response to a MAP_PRIVATE mmap system call on /dev/zero, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (system crash) via a crafted application.

Affected products

Linux kernel: before 2.6.39 — fixed in 2.6.39

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 2.6.39. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.39
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=78f11a255749d09025f54d4e2df4fbcb031530e2
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2011/06/20/14
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=714761
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/78f11a255749d09025f54d4e2df4fbcb031530e2
http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.39
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=78f11a255749d09025f54d4e2df4fbcb031530e2
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2011/06/20/14
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=714761
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/78f11a255749d09025f54d4e2df4fbcb031530e2

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