CVE-2011-2918

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
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: 2012-05-24 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-400

Description

The Performance Events subsystem in the Linux kernel before 3.1 does not properly handle event overflows associated with PERF_COUNT_SW_CPU_CLOCK events, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (system hang) via a crafted application.

Affected products

Linux kernel: before 3.1 — fixed in 3.1

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 3.1. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=a8b0ca17b80e92faab46ee7179ba9e99ccb61233
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.x/ChangeLog-3.1
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2011/08/16/1
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=730706
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/a8b0ca17b80e92faab46ee7179ba9e99ccb61233
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=a8b0ca17b80e92faab46ee7179ba9e99ccb61233
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.x/ChangeLog-3.1
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2011/08/16/1
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=730706
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/a8b0ca17b80e92faab46ee7179ba9e99ccb61233

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