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Fencer Intel
high 7.2

CVE-2015-3290 json

arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S in the Linux kernel before 4.1.6 on the x86_64 platform improperly relies on espfix64 during nested NMI processin…

published 2015-08-31 11 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2015-3337

cvss
7.2
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.1%
EPSS 1.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 65%
public exploits
1
Exploit-DB

Summary

arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S in the Linux kernel before 4.1.6 on the x86_64 platform improperly relies on espfix64 during nested NMI processing, which allows local users to gain privileges by triggering an NMI within a certain instruction window.

Patch / fix

  • linux linux_kernel 3.12.47, 3.14.54, 3.16.35, 3.18.22, 4.1.6
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 4.0.8-2

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2015-3290

  • linux Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 3.13.0-59.98
  • linux-lts-vivid Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 3.19.0-25.26~14.04.1
  • linux-lts-utopic Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 3.16.0-45.60~14.04.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2015-3290

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

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-2015-3290 updated cvss 7.2

kernel: x86: nested NMI handler and espfix64 interaction privilege escalation

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 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

Timeline

  1. First public exploit (EDB-37722)
  2. Published

Exploit prediction

1.10% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 65% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • EDB-37722 Linux Kernel - 'espfix64' Nested NMIs Interrupting Privilege Escalation local, 2015-08-05

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 7.2 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-264 Permissions, Privileges, and Access Controls
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.