CVE-2011-4621

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
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: yes
Published: 2012-05-17 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-835

Description

The Linux kernel before 2.6.37 does not properly implement a certain clock-update optimization, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (system hang) via an application that executes code in a loop.

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://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.37
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=f26f9aff6aaf67e9a430d16c266f91b13a5bff64
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2011/12/21/6
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=769711
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/f26f9aff6aaf67e9a430d16c266f91b13a5bff64
http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.37
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=f26f9aff6aaf67e9a430d16c266f91b13a5bff64
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2011/12/21/6
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=769711
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/f26f9aff6aaf67e9a430d16c266f91b13a5bff64

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