CVEs / CVE-2017-1000253

CVE-2017-1000253: Linux Kernel PIE Stack Buffer Corruption Vulnerability

• Known exploited in the CISA KEV catalog since 9 Sep 2024
• high 7.8 CVSS 3.1 (NVD)
• EPSS 10.6% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 95% of CVEs (30 Oct 2026)
• Last changed at its sources 17 Jun 2026

Summary

Linux kernel contains a position-independent executable (PIE) stack buffer corruption vulnerability in load_elf_ binary() that allows a local attacker to escalate privileges.

Description

Linux distributions that have not patched their long-term kernels with https://git.kernel.org/linus/a87938b2e246b81b4fb713edb371a9fa3c5c3c86 (committed on April 14, 2015). This kernel vulnerability was fixed in April 2015 by commit a87938b2e246b81b4fb713edb371a9fa3c5c3c86 (backported to Linux 3.10.77 in May 2015), but it was not recognized as a security threat. With CONFIG_ARCH_BINFMT_ELF_RANDOMIZE_PIE enabled, and a normal top-down address allocation strategy, load_elf_binary() will attempt to map a PIE binary into an address range immediately below mm->mmap_base. Unfortunately, load_elf_ binary() does not take account of the need to allocate sufficient space for the entire binary which means that, while the first PT_LOAD segment is mapped below mm->mmap_base, the subsequent PT_LOAD segment(s) end up being mapped above mm->mmap_base into the are that is supposed to be the "gap" between the stack and the binary.

Affected and fixed versions

Exploitation

Severity

References

• CVE-2017-1000253 on NVD
• CVE-2017-1000253 in the CISA KEV catalog
• https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=a87938b2e246b81b4fb713edb371a9fa3c5c3c86 (cited by CISA)
• CVE-2017-1000253 on OSV
• http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/101010 Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
• http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1039434 Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:2793 Third Party Advisory
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:2794 Third Party Advisory
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:2795 Third Party Advisory
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:2796 Third Party Advisory
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:2797 Third Party Advisory
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:2798 Third Party Advisory
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:2799 Third Party Advisory
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:2800 Third Party Advisory
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:2801 Third Party Advisory
• https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2017:2802 Third Party Advisory
• https://www.qualys.com/2017/09/26/cve-2017-1000253/cve-2017-1000253.txt Patch, Third Party Advisory
• https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2017-1000253 US Government Resource