CVE-2014-2038

Severity: low (CVSS 2.1 v2.0)
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: 2014-02-28 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-200

Description

The nfs_can_extend_write function in fs/nfs/write.c in the Linux kernel before 3.13.3 relies on a write delegation to extend a write operation without a certain up-to-date verification, which allows local users to obtain sensitive information from kernel memory in opportunistic circumstances by writing to a file in an NFS filesystem and then reading the same file.

Affected products

Canonical Ubuntu Linux: 12.04, 13.10
Linux kernel: before 3.13.3 — fixed in 3.13.3

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 3.13.3. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=263b4509ec4d47e0da3e753f85a39ea12d1eff24
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.x/ChangeLog-3.13.3
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2014/02/20/16
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-2137-1
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-2140-1
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1066939
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/263b4509ec4d47e0da3e753f85a39ea12d1eff24
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=263b4509ec4d47e0da3e753f85a39ea12d1eff24
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.x/ChangeLog-3.13.3
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2014/02/20/16
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-2137-1
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-2140-1

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