CVE-2020-8428

Severity: high (CVSS 7.1 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.7% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2020-01-29 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-416

Description

fs/namei.c in the Linux kernel before 5.5 has a may_create_in_sticky use-after-free, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (OOPS) or possibly obtain sensitive information from kernel memory, aka CID-d0cb50185ae9. One attack vector may be an open system call for a UNIX domain socket, if the socket is being moved to a new parent directory and its old parent directory is being removed.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 4.19 before 5.5 — fixed in 5.5

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 5.5. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-03/msg00021.html
http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/157233/Kernel-Live-Patch-Security-Notice-LSN-0065-1.html
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2020/01/28/4
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2020/02/02/1
https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=d0cb50185ae942b03c4327be322055d622dc79f6
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/d0cb50185ae942b03c4327be322055d622dc79f6
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/06/msg00012.html
https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20200313-0003/
https://usn.ubuntu.com/4318-1/
https://usn.ubuntu.com/4319-1/
https://usn.ubuntu.com/4320-1/
https://usn.ubuntu.com/4324-1/

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