CVE-2017-16994

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 2.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2017-11-27 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-200

Description

The walk_hugetlb_range function in mm/pagewalk.c in the Linux kernel before 4.14.2 mishandles holes in hugetlb ranges, which allows local users to obtain sensitive information from uninitialized kernel memory via crafted use of the mincore() system call.

Affected products

Linux kernel: before 4.14.2 — fixed in 4.14.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 4.14.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=373c4557d2aa362702c4c2d41288fb1e54990b7c
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v4.x/ChangeLog-4.14.2
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/101969
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:0502
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project-zero/issues/detail?id=1431
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/373c4557d2aa362702c4c2d41288fb1e54990b7c
https://usn.ubuntu.com/3617-1/
https://usn.ubuntu.com/3617-2/
https://usn.ubuntu.com/3617-3/
https://usn.ubuntu.com/3619-1/
https://usn.ubuntu.com/3619-2/
https://usn.ubuntu.com/3632-1/

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