CVE-2016-6197

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 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: 2016-08-06 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-20

Description

fs/overlayfs/dir.c in the OverlayFS filesystem implementation in the Linux kernel before 4.6 does not properly verify the upper dentry before proceeding with unlink and rename system-call processing, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (system crash) via a rename system call that specifies a self-hardlink.

Affected products

Linux kernel: through 4.5.7
Oracle Corporation Oracle Linux: 6
Oracle Vm Server: 3.4

References

http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=11f3710417d026ea2f4fcf362d866342c5274185
http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2016-1847.html
http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2016-1875.html
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2016/07/11/8
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/linuxbulletinjul2016-3090544.html
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/ovmbulletinjul2016-3090546.html
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/91709
http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1036273
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-3070-1
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-3070-2
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-3070-3
http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/USN-3070-4

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