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Fencer Intel
medium 4.9

CVE-2012-3375 json

The epoll_ctl system call in fs/eventpoll.c in the Linux kernel before 3.2.24 does not properly handle ELOOP errors in EPOLL_CTL_ADD operat…

published 2012-10-03 14 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2012-3348

cvss
4.9
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.0%
EPSS 1.0% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 63%
public exploits
1
Exploit-DB

Summary

The epoll_ctl system call in fs/eventpoll.c in the Linux kernel before 3.2.24 does not properly handle ELOOP errors in EPOLL_CTL_ADD operations, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (file-descriptor consumption and system crash) via a crafted application that attempts to create a circular epoll dependency. NOTE: this vulnerability exists because of an incorrect fix for CVE-2011-1083.

Patch / fix

  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 3.2.23-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2012-3375

  • kernel-rt enterprise mrg 2 3.0.36-rt57.66.el6rt
  • kernel-rt-trace enterprise mrg 2 3.0.36-rt57.66.el6rt
  • kernel-rt-vanilla enterprise mrg 2 3.0.36-rt57.66.el6rt
  • kernel-rt-firmware enterprise mrg 2 3.0.36-rt57.66.el6rt
  • kernel-rt-debuginfo-common-x86_64 enterprise mrg 2 3.0.36-rt57.66.el6rt
  • kernel RHEL 5 2.6.18-308.11.1.el5
  • kernel-PAE RHEL 5 2.6.18-308.11.1.el5
  • kernel-xen RHEL 5 2.6.18-308.11.1.el5

red hat advisories RHSA-2012:1150RHSA-2012:1061

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-2012-3375 updated cvss 4.9

kernel: epoll: can leak file descriptors when returning -ELOOP

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
    affected: no fix available
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (v. 5 server) kernel 2.6.18-308.11.1.el5, kernel-PAE 2.6.18-308.11.1.el5, kernel-xen 2.6.18-308.11.1.el5, kernel-kdump 2.6.18-308.11.1.el5, kernel-debuginfo-common 2.6.18-308.11.1.el5 Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 5 client) kernel 2.6.18-308.11.1.el5, kernel-PAE 2.6.18-308.11.1.el5, kernel-xen 2.6.18-308.11.1.el5, kernel-debuginfo-common 2.6.18-308.11.1.el5
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2012:1061
  • Red Hat MRG Realtime for RHEL 6 Server v.2 kernel-rt 3.0.36-rt57.66.el6rt, kernel-rt-trace 3.0.36-rt57.66.el6rt, kernel-rt-vanilla 3.0.36-rt57.66.el6rt, kernel-rt-firmware 3.0.36-rt57.66.el6rt, kernel-rt-debuginfo-common-x86_64 3.0.36-rt57.66.el6rt
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2012:1150

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-19605)
  2. Published

Exploit prediction

1.02% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 63% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • EDB-19605 Linux Kernel 3.2.24 - 'fs/eventpoll.c' Local Denial of Service dos, 2012-07-05
  • github.com https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/13d518074a952d33d47c428419693f63389547e9 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

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

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.