CVE-2015-8709

Severity: high (CVSS 7.0 v3.0)
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: 2016-02-08 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-264

Description

kernel/ptrace.c in the Linux kernel through 4.4.1 mishandles uid and gid mappings, which allows local users to gain privileges by establishing a user namespace, waiting for a root process to enter that namespace with an unsafe uid or gid, and then using the ptrace system call. NOTE: the vendor states "there is no kernel bug here.

Affected products

Linux kernel: through 4.4.1

References

http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2016-February/176484.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-04/msg00015.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-04/msg00019.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-04/msg00025.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-04/msg00026.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-04/msg00027.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-04/msg00028.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-04/msg00029.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-04/msg00030.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-04/msg00031.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-04/msg00032.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-04/msg00033.html

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