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Linux Kernel "do_brk()" Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
Secunia Advisory: SA10328
Release Date: 2003-12-02
Popularity: 29,758 views

Critical:
Less critical
Impact: Privilege escalation
Where: Local system
Solution Status: Vendor Patch

OS:Linux Kernel 2.4.x

Secunia CVSS-2 Score: Available in Secunia business solutions

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Advisory Content (Page 1 of 3)[ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]

Description:
A vulnerability has been identified in the Linux kernel 2.4, which can be exploited by malicious, local users to escalate their privileges.

The problem is that the kernel function "do_brk()" fails to perform proper bounds checking, allowing users to create a large virtual memory area (VMA), which can include kernel memory. This gives the user access to kernel memory space.

While "do_brk()" can't be called directly by user space processes, it may be called through ELF and a.out loaders as well as the "brk()" system call. Successful exploitation provides full root privileges.

An exploit has been developed and is in the wild.

This has been reported to affect Linux kernel prior to 2.4.23.

Change Page:
[ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]



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