# CVE-2020-10781: Denial of service in kernel

> A local attacker can exhaust system memory by repeatedly reading a ZRAM control file, triggering the OOM killer and causing system instability.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **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:** Yes
- **Published:** 16 Sep 2020
- **Updated:** 8 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2020-10781, GHSA-93vf-4x6g-q64v, UBUNTU-CVE-2020-10781

## What is CVE-2020-10781?

CVE-2020-10781 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Debian Debian Linux, published on 16 Sep 2020. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

A flaw was found in the Linux Kernel before 5.8-rc6 in the ZRAM kernel module, where a user with a local account and the ability to read the /sys/class/zram-control/hot_add file can create ZRAM device nodes in the /dev/ directory. This read allocates kernel memory and is not accounted for a user that triggers the creation of that ZRAM device. With this vulnerability, continually reading the device may consume a large amount of system memory and cause the Out-of-Memory (OOM) killer to activate and terminate random userspace processes, possibly making the system inoperable.

Weakness: CWE-732 (Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-10781?

It affects 2 products.


Products: Debian Debian Linux, Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2020-10781?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2020-10781 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-10781 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Debian Debian Linux

- [CVE-2015-3306](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2015-3306/): ProFTPD Improper Access Control (critical 10.0, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2025-49113](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-49113/): RoundCube Webmail Deserialization of Untrusted Data (critical 9.9, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-24061](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-24061/): GNU InetUtils Argument Injection (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2025-39682](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-39682/): Linux Kernel Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2024-9680](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-9680/): Mozilla Firefox Use-After-Free (critical 9.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2020-10781 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2020-10781 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Debian Debian Linux, published on 16 Sep 2020. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-10781 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Debian Debian Linux. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-10781/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-10781/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2020-10781
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-10781
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2020-10781

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2020-10781/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.