What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2017-17053

• Severity: high (CVSS 7.0 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2017-11-29 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-416

Description

The init_new_context function in arch/x86/include/asm/mmu_context.h in the Linux kernel before 4.12.10 does not correctly handle errors from LDT table allocation when forking a new process, allowing a local attacker to achieve a use-after-free or possibly have unspecified other impact by running a specially crafted program. This vulnerability only affected kernels built with CONFIG_MODIFY_LDT_SYSCALL=y.

Affected products

• Linux kernel: from 4.4.144 before 4.4.153; from 4.6 before 4.9.46; from 4.10 before 4.12.10 — fixed in 4.12.10, 4.4.153, 4.9.46

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 4.12.10, 4.4.153, 4.9.46. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=ccd5b3235180eef3cfec337df1c8554ab151b5cc
• http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/102010
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:0676
• https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/ccd5b3235180eef3cfec337df1c8554ab151b5cc
• https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v4.x/ChangeLog-4.12.10
• http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=ccd5b3235180eef3cfec337df1c8554ab151b5cc
• http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/102010
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2018:0676
• https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/ccd5b3235180eef3cfec337df1c8554ab151b5cc
• https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v4.x/ChangeLog-4.12.10

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