Linux Kernel "uname()" Kernel Memory Disclosure Weakness

SA50895

CVE-2012-0957

10 Oct 2012

31 Oct 2012

Not Critical

Partial Fix

Local system

Exposure of system information

Vulnerabilities where excessive information about the system (e.g. version numbers, running services, installation paths, and similar) are exposed and can be revealed from remote and in some cases locally.

A weakness has been reported in Linux Kernel, which can be exploited by malicious, local users to disclose potentially sensitive system information.

The weakness is caused due to an error when populating the system information structure as a result of the "uname()" system call. This can be exploited to disclose some kernel stack-based memory via the UNAME26 execution domain.

Update to a fixed version if available.

Linux Kernel 3.0.x:
Update to version 3.0.49.

Linux Kernel 3.2.x:
Update to version 3.2.33.

Linux Kernel 3.4.x:
Update to version 3.4.16

Linux Kernel 3.5.x:
No official solution is currently available.

Reported by Brad Spengler via a patch.

https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/10/9/550
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.0/ChangeLog-3.4.16
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.0/ChangeLog-3.0.49
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.0/ChangeLog-3.2.33