An exploitable vulnerability exists in the grsecurity PaX patch for the function read_kmem, in PaX from version pax-linux-4.9.8-test1 to 4.…

published 2019-10-31 7y ago modified 2026-06-17 4mo ago also EUVD-2019-14630

cvss: 5.9; version 3.0, CNA
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.7%; EPSS 0.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 55%
public exploits: 0; none known

An exploitable vulnerability exists in the grsecurity PaX patch for the function read_kmem, in PaX from version pax-linux-4.9.8-test1 to 4.9.24-test7, grsecurity official from version grsecurity-3.1-4.9.8-201702060653 to grsecurity-3.1-4.9.24-201704252333, grsecurity unofficial from version v4.9.25-unofficialgrsec to v4.9.74-unofficialgrsec. PaX adds a temp buffer to the read_kmem function, which is never freed when an invalid address is supplied. This results in a memory leakage that can lead to a crash of the system. An attacker needs to induce a read to /dev/kmem using an invalid address to exploit this vulnerability.

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Exploit prediction

0.75% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 55% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

talosintelligence.com https://talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2019-0784 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CNA	3.0	5.9	CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD	3.1	5.9	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD	2.0	4.3	AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Affected products

n/a PaX

Classification

Weakness

CWE-401 Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime
CWE-772 Missing Release of Resource after Effective Lifetime

References

talosintelligence.com /vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2019-0784
exploit, third-party-advisory

Sources

CVE List CVE-2019-5023
NVD CVE-2019-5023

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