CVE-2016-2550 Denial of service in n/a

What is CVE-2016-2550?

CVE-2016-2550 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 27 Apr 2016. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

The Linux kernel before 4.5 allows local users to bypass file-descriptor limits and cause a denial of service (memory consumption) by leveraging incorrect tracking of descriptor ownership and sending each descriptor over a UNIX socket before closing it. NOTE: this vulnerability exists because of an incorrect fix for CVE-2013-4312.

Weakness: CWE-399

Which versions are affected by CVE-2016-2550?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2016-2550?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2016-2550 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2016-2550 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 CVE-2016-2250, DEBIAN-CVE-2016-2550, GHSA-w67r-pc7p-x294, UBUNTU-CVE-2016-2550.