CVE-2020-14351

Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2020-12-03 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-416

Description

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel. A use-after-free memory flaw was found in the perf subsystem allowing a local attacker with permission to monitor perf events to corrupt memory and possibly escalate privileges. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data confidentiality and integrity as well as system availability.

Affected products

Debian Linux: 9.0
Linux kernel: before 5.8.17 — fixed in 5.8.17
Red Hat Enterprise Linux: 7.0, 8.0

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 5.8.17. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1862849
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/12/msg00015.html
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/12/msg00027.html
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1862849
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/12/msg00015.html
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/12/msg00027.html

Get alerted when CVE-2020-14351 or the next vulnerability affects your stack