CVE-2017-16995

Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 30.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2017-12-27 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-119

Description

The check_alu_op function in kernel/bpf/verifier.c in the Linux kernel through 4.4 allows local users to cause a denial of service (memory corruption) or possibly have unspecified other impact by leveraging incorrect sign extension.

Affected products

Canonical Ubuntu Linux: 14.04, 16.04
Debian Linux: 9.0
Linux kernel: from 4.9 before 4.9.72; from 4.10 before 4.14.9 — fixed in 4.14.9, 4.9.72

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 4.14.9, 4.9.72. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=95a762e2c8c942780948091f8f2a4f32fce1ac6f
http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2017/12/21/2
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/102288
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project-zero/issues/detail?id=1454
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/tip.git/commit/?id=a6132276ab5dcc38b3299082efeb25b948263adb
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/95a762e2c8c942780948091f8f2a4f32fce1ac6f
https://usn.ubuntu.com/3619-1/
https://usn.ubuntu.com/3619-2/
https://usn.ubuntu.com/3633-1/
https://usn.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-3523-2/
https://www.debian.org/security/2017/dsa-4073
https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/44298/

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