CVE-2014-5045 Use after free in n/a

What is CVE-2014-5045?

CVE-2014-5045 is a medium-severity use after free vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 1 Aug 2014. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

The mountpoint_last function in fs/namei.c in the Linux kernel before 3.15.8 does not properly maintain a certain reference count during attempts to use the umount system call in conjunction with a symlink, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (memory consumption or use-after-free) or possibly have unspecified other impact via the umount program.

Weakness: CWE-59

Which versions are affected by CVE-2014-5045?

It affects 4 products.

Products include Linux kernel, Redhat Enterprise Linux Eus, Redhat Enterprise Linux Server Aus, Redhat Enterprise Linux Server Tus.

How do I fix CVE-2014-5045?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

Upgrade to the fixed version. These bugs are found with fuzzing and sanitisers and avoided by memory-safe languages. More about Use after free.

Is CVE-2014-5045 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2014-5045 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2014-5045, GHSA-9pvv-pv37-92f4, UBUNTU-CVE-2014-5045.