Skip to content
Fencer Intel
medium 5.5

CVE-2011-5321 json

The tty_open function in drivers/tty/tty_io.c in the Linux kernel before 3.1.1 mishandles a driver-lookup failure, which allows local users…

published 2016-05-02 10 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2011-5220

cvss
5.5
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 31%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The tty_open function in drivers/tty/tty_io.c in the Linux kernel before 3.1.1 mishandles a driver-lookup failure, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and system crash) or possibly have unspecified other impact via crafted access to a device file under the /dev/pts directory.

Patch / fix

  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 3.2.20-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2011-5321

  • kernel RHEL 6 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6
  • perf RHEL 6 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6
  • python-perf RHEL 6 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6
  • kernel-kdump RHEL 6 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6
  • kernel-firmware RHEL 6 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6
  • kernel-bootwrapper RHEL 6 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6
  • kernel-abi-whitelists RHEL 6 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6
  • kernel-debuginfo-common-i686 RHEL 6 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6

red hat advisories RHSA-2015:1221

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-2011-5321 updated cvss 4.7

Kernel: tty: driver reference leakage in tty_open

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 6) perf 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-firmware 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-abi-whitelists 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-debuginfo-common-i686 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop Optional (v. 6) python-perf 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-debuginfo-common-i686 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux HPC Node (v. 6) perf 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-firmware 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-abi-whitelists 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux HPC Node Optional (v. 6) python-perf 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (v. 6) perf 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-kdump 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-firmware 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-bootwrapper 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-abi-whitelists 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, +4 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Optional (v. 6) python-perf 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-debuginfo-common-i686 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-debuginfo-common-ppc64 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-debuginfo-common-s390x 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6
    +2 more products
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation (v. 6) perf 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-firmware 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-abi-whitelists 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-debuginfo-common-i686 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation Optional (v. 6) python-perf 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-debuginfo-common-i686 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6, kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64 2.6.32-504.30.3.el6
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2015:1221
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-tools, +3 more Red Hat Enterprise MRG 2 kernel-rt, mrg-rt-release, kernel-rt-trace, kernel-rt-vanilla, kernel-rt-firmware
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

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

Exploit prediction

0.37% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 31% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 5.5 CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 2.0 4.9 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C

Classification

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.