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Fencer Intel
high 7.8

CVE-2017-5546 json

The freelist-randomization feature in mm/slab.c in the Linux kernel 4.8.x and 4.9.x before 4.9.5 allows local users to cause a denial of se…

published 2017-02-06 9 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2017-14647

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 36%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The freelist-randomization feature in mm/slab.c in the Linux kernel 4.8.x and 4.9.x before 4.9.5 allows local users to cause a denial of service (duplicate freelist entries and system crash) or possibly have unspecified other impact in opportunistic circumstances by leveraging the selection of a large value for a random number.

Patch / fix

  • linux linux_kernel 4.9.5
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 4.9.6-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2017-5546

  • linux-hwe Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 4.10.0-32.36~16.04.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2017-5546

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-2017-5546 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: SLAB freelist randomization produces duplicate entries

  • 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

Exploit prediction

0.42% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 36% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.2 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/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.