Re: CVE request -- Linux kernel: mm/hotplug: failure in propagating hot-added memory to other nodes

[Marcus Meissner <meissner () suse de>]

On Sun, Nov 11, 2012 at 12:19:13AM -0700, Kurt Seifried wrote:
> On 11/10/2012 02:36 PM, Petr Matousek wrote:
> > A NULL pointer dereference flaw has been found in the way a new
> > node's hot-added memory is propagated to other nodes zonelists. An
> > unprivileged local user can use this flaw to crash the system.
> >
> > Upstream fix: 
> > http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=08dff7b7d629807dbb1f398c68dd9cd58dd657a1
> >
> >  References: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=875374
> >
> > Thanks,
>
> Please use CVE-2012-5517 for this issue.

Our Mel Gorman wonders how this is a security issue.

A local attacker would need to wait for the administrator to hot-add
memory, which seems unlikely on first thought?

Ciao, Marcus