#VU1009 Privilege escalation in Linux kernel - CVE-2016-7425

Vulnerability identifier: #VU1009

Vulnerability risk: Low

CVSSv4.0: 4.5 [CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:L/VI:L/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/U:Clear]

CVE-ID: CVE-2016-7425

CWE-ID: CWE-805

Exploitation vector: Local

Exploit availability: No

Vulnerable software:
Linux kernel
Operating systems & Components / Operating system

Vendor: Linux Foundation

Description
The vulnerability allows a local user to gain elevated privileges on the target system.
The weakness is due to insufficient restriction of length field by arcmsr_iop_message_xfer function in drivers/scsi/arcmsr/arcmsr_hba.c. By sending an ARCMSR_MESSAGE_WRITE_WQBUFFER control code, attackers can gain elevated privileges and trigger a heap-based buffer overflow.
Success fule exploitation of the vulnerability may result in denial of service on the vulnerable system.

Mitigation
Update to version 4.8.2.

Vulnerable software versions

Linux kernel: 3.2.78-1 - 3.2.81-1, 3.14.72 - 3.16.7-ckt25-2+deb8u3 , 4.0.1 - 4.0.9, 4.1.1 - 4.1.36, 4.2.1 - 4.2.8, 4.3.1 - 4.3.6, 4.4.1 - 4.4.25, 4.5.1 - 4.5.7, 4.6.1 - 4.6.7, 4.7.1 - 4.7.8, 4.8.1

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External links
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1377330
https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v4.x/ChangeLog-4.1.37

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Q & A

Can this vulnerability be exploited remotely?

No. This vulnerability can be exploited locally. The attacker should have authentication credentials and successfully authenticate on the system.

Is there known malware, which exploits this vulnerability?

No. We are not aware of malware exploiting this vulnerability.