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TITLE:
Linux Kernel SMP "/proc" Race Condition Denial of Service

SECUNIA ADVISORY ID:
SA20349

VERIFY ADVISORY:
http://secunia.com/advisories/20349/

CRITICAL:
Not critical

IMPACT:
DoS

WHERE:
Local system

OPERATING SYSTEM:
Linux Kernel 2.6.x
http://secunia.com/product/2719/

DESCRIPTION:
Tony Griffiths has reported a vulnerability in the Linux Kernel,
which can be exploited malicious, local users to cause a DoS (Denial
of Service).

The vulnerability is cause due to a memory corruption error in the
"dentry_unused" list within the "prune_dcache()" function. This can
be exploited to crash the kernel when running on SMP hardware by
causing a race condition such that one or more tasks exit while
another task is reading their /proc entries.

The vulnerability has been reported in versions 2.6.15 through
2.6.17. Other versions may also be affected.

SOLUTION:
Grant only trusted users access to affected systems.

Secunia is currently not aware of an official version addressing
this.

PROVIDED AND/OR DISCOVERED BY:
Tony Griffiths

ORIGINAL ADVISORY:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=114860432801543&w=2

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