CVE-2016-2053

Severity: medium (CVSS 4.7 v3.0)
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: none known
Published: 2016-05-02 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-310

Description

The asn1_ber_decoder function in lib/asn1_decoder.c in the Linux kernel before 4.3 allows attackers to cause a denial of service (panic) via an ASN.1 BER file that lacks a public key, leading to mishandling by the public_key_verify_signature function in crypto/asymmetric_keys/public_key.c.

Affected products

Linux kernel: before 4.3 — fixed in 4.3

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 4.3. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=0d62e9dd6da45bbf0f33a8617afc5fe774c8f45f
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-06/msg00044.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-06/msg00052.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-06/msg00054.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-08/msg00000.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-08/msg00003.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-08/msg00007.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-08/msg00008.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-08/msg00009.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-08/msg00014.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-08/msg00015.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2016-08/msg00016.html

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