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Fencer Intel
medium 5.5

CVE-2019-9857 json

In the Linux kernel through 5.0.2, the function inotify_update_existing_watch() in fs/notify/inotify/inotify_user.c neglects to call fsnoti…

published 7y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2019-19213

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 36%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In the Linux kernel through 5.0.2, the function inotify_update_existing_watch() in fs/notify/inotify/inotify_user.c neglects to call fsnotify_put_mark() with IN_MASK_CREATE after fsnotify_find_mark(), which will cause a memory leak (aka refcount leak). Finally, this will cause a denial of service.

Patch / fix

  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 4.19.37-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2019-9857

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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-2019-9857 updated cvss 5.7

kernel: memory leak in inotify_update_existing_watch() leads to denial of service

  • 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, kernel-alt, python-perf, +9 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 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 3.0 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

Weakness
  • CWE-401 Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime
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.