CVE-2011-2928

Severity: medium (CVSS 4.9 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: 2011-08-29 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-476

Description

The befs_follow_link function in fs/befs/linuxvfs.c in the Linux kernel before 3.1-rc3 does not validate the length attribute of long symlinks, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (incorrect pointer dereference and OOPS) by accessing a long symlink on a malformed Be filesystem.

Affected products

Linux kernel: before 3.1; 3.1, 3.1-rc1, 3.1-rc2 — 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=338d0f0a6fbc82407864606f5b64b75aeb3c70f2
http://securityreason.com/securityalert/8360
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.0/testing/ChangeLog-3.1-rc3
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2011/08/19/1
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2011/08/19/5
http://www.pre-cert.de/advisories/PRE-SA-2011-06.txt
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/519387/100/0/threaded
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/49256
https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/vulnerabilities/69343
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=338d0f0a6fbc82407864606f5b64b75aeb3c70f2
http://securityreason.com/securityalert/8360
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.0/testing/ChangeLog-3.1-rc3

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