A resource-exhaustion vulnerability was found in the kernel, where an unprivileged process could allocate and accumulate far more file descriptors than the process' limit. A local, unauthenticated user could exploit this flaw by sending file descriptors over a Unix socket and then closing them to keep the process' fd count low, thereby creating kernel-memory or file-descriptors exhaustion (denial of service).
Find out more about CVE-2016-2550 from the MITRE CVE dictionary dictionary and NIST NVD.
This issue affects the Linux kernel packages as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. This has been rated as having Moderate security impact and is not currently planned to be addressed in future updates. For additional information, refer to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Life Cycle: https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata/.
This issue does not affect the Linux kernel packages as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, 7 and MRG-2.
NOTE: The following CVSS v2 metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.
| Base Score | 4.9 |
|---|---|
| Base Metrics | AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C |
| Access Vector | Local |
| Access Complexity | Low |
| Authentication | None |
| Confidentiality Impact | None |
| Integrity Impact | None |
| Availability Impact | Complete |
Find out more about Red Hat support for the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
| Platform | Package | State |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise MRG 2 | realtime-kernel | Not affected |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | kernel-rt | Not affected |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | kernel | Not affected |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 | kernel | Not affected |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 | kernel | Will not fix |
Vulmon