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Fencer Intel
medium 4.9

CVE-2010-4243 json

fs/exec.c in the Linux kernel before 2.6.37 does not enable the OOM Killer to assess use of stack memory by arrays representing the (1) arg…

published 2011-01-22 15 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2010-4216

cvss
4.9
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.9%
EPSS 0.9% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 60%
public exploits
1
Exploit-DB

Summary

fs/exec.c in the Linux kernel before 2.6.37 does not enable the OOM Killer to assess use of stack memory by arrays representing the (1) arguments and (2) environment, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (memory consumption) via a crafted exec system call, aka an "OOM dodging issue," a related issue to CVE-2010-3858.

Patch / fix

  • linux linux_kernel 2.6.37
  • kernel RHEL 5 2.6.18-238.el5
  • kernel-PAE RHEL 5 2.6.18-238.el5
  • kernel-xen RHEL 5 2.6.18-238.el5
  • kernel-kdump RHEL 5 2.6.18-238.el5
  • kernel-debuginfo-common RHEL 5 2.6.18-238.el5
  • kernel-rt enterprise mrg 2 2.6.33.9-rt31.75.el6rt
  • kernel-rt-trace enterprise mrg 2 2.6.33.9-rt31.75.el6rt
  • kernel-rt-vanilla enterprise mrg 2 2.6.33.9-rt31.75.el6rt

red hat advisories RHSA-2011:0017RHSA-2011:1253RHSA-2011:0283

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2010-4243 updated cvss 4.9

kernel: mm: mem allocated invisible to oom_kill() when not attached to any threads

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (v. 5 server) kernel 2.6.18-238.el5, kernel-PAE 2.6.18-238.el5, kernel-xen 2.6.18-238.el5, kernel-kdump 2.6.18-238.el5, kernel-debuginfo-common 2.6.18-238.el5 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 5 client) kernel 2.6.18-238.el5, kernel-PAE 2.6.18-238.el5, kernel-xen 2.6.18-238.el5, kernel-kdump 2.6.18-238.el5, kernel-debuginfo-common 2.6.18-238.el5
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2011:0017
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 6) perf 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, kernel 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, kernel-kdump 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, kernel-firmware 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, kernel-bootwrapper 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, kernel-debuginfo-common-i686 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, +3 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux HPC Node (v. 6) perf 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, kernel 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, kernel-kdump 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, kernel-firmware 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, kernel-bootwrapper 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, kernel-debuginfo-common-i686 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, +3 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 6) perf 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, kernel 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, kernel-kdump 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, kernel-firmware 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, kernel-bootwrapper 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, kernel-debuginfo-common-i686 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, +3 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 6) perf 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, kernel 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, kernel-kdump 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, kernel-firmware 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, kernel-bootwrapper 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, kernel-debuginfo-common-i686 2.6.32-71.18.1.el6, +3 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2011:0283
  • Red Hat MRG Realtime for RHEL 6 Server v.2 kernel-rt 2.6.33.9-rt31.75.el6rt, kernel-rt-trace 2.6.33.9-rt31.75.el6rt, kernel-rt-vanilla 2.6.33.9-rt31.75.el6rt, kernel-rt-firmware 2.6.33.9-rt31.75.el6rt, kernel-rt-debuginfo-common-x86_64 2.6.33.9-rt31.75.el6rt
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2011:1253

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Timeline

  1. First public exploit (EDB-15619)
  2. Published

Exploit prediction

0.91% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 60% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • EDB-15619 Linux Kernel 2.6.37 - 'setup_arg_pages()' Denial of Service dos, 2010-11-26

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 4.9 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-400 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.