What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2021-38200

• Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 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: 2021-08-08 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-476

Description

arch/powerpc/perf/core-book3s.c in the Linux kernel before 5.12.13, on systems with perf_event_paranoid=-1 and no specific PMU driver support registered, allows local users to cause a denial of service (perf_instruction_pointer NULL pointer dereference and OOPS) via a "perf record" command.

Affected products

• Linux kernel: before 5.12.13 — fixed in 5.12.13

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 5.12.13. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v5.x/ChangeLog-5.12.13
• https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/60b7ed54a41b550d50caf7f2418db4a7e75b5bdc
• https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v5.x/ChangeLog-5.12.13
• https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/60b7ed54a41b550d50caf7f2418db4a7e75b5bdc

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