CVE-2016-4794

Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
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: yes
Published: 2016-05-23 · updated 2026-06-17

Description

Use-after-free vulnerability in mm/percpu.c in the Linux kernel through 4.6 allows local users to cause a denial of service (BUG) or possibly have unspecified other impact via crafted use of the mmap and bpf system calls.

Affected products

Canonical Ubuntu Linux: 14.04, 16.04
Linux kernel: from 3.18 before 3.18.37; from 3.19 before 4.1.28; from 4.2 before 4.4.16; from 4.5 before 4.6.5 — fixed in 3.18.37, 4.1.28, 4.4.16, 4.6.5

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 3.18.37, 4.1.28, 4.4.16, 4.6.5. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2016-2574.html
http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2016-2584.html
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/05/12/6
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/90625
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-3053-1
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-3054-1
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-3055-1
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-3056-1
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-3057-1
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1335889
https://lkml.org/lkml/2016/4/17/125
https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/2016-12-01.html

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