CVE-2019-9857 Denial of service in n/a
A memory leak in the Linux kernel's inotify subsystem allows attackers to cause a denial of service via resource exhaustion.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2019-9857?
CVE-2019-9857 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 18 Mar 2019. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
In the Linux kernel through 5.0.2, the function inotify_update_existing_watch() in fs/notify/inotify/inotify_user.c neglects to call fsnotify_put_mark() with IN_MASK_CREATE after fsnotify_find_mark(), which will cause a memory leak (aka refcount leak). Finally, this will cause a denial of service.
Weakness: CWE-401
Which versions are affected by CVE-2019-9857?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2019-9857?
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-2019-9857 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2019-9857 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2019-9857, GHSA-p54v-5qqx-fv5f.