CVE-2012-6704

Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 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: none known
Published: 2016-12-28 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-119

Description

The sock_setsockopt function in net/core/sock.c in the Linux kernel before 3.5 mishandles negative values of sk_sndbuf and sk_rcvbuf, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (memory corruption and system crash) or possibly have unspecified other impact by leveraging the CAP_NET_ADMIN capability for a crafted setsockopt system call with the (1) SO_SNDBUF or (2) SO_RCVBUF option.

Affected products

Linux kernel: before 3.2.85; from 3.3 before 3.5 — fixed in 3.2.85, 3.5

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 3.2.85, 3.5. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=82981930125abfd39d7c8378a9cfdf5e1be2002b
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/12/03/1
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/95135
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1402024
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/82981930125abfd39d7c8378a9cfdf5e1be2002b
http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=82981930125abfd39d7c8378a9cfdf5e1be2002b
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/12/03/1
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/95135
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1402024
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/82981930125abfd39d7c8378a9cfdf5e1be2002b

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