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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.9

CVE-2019-5023 json

An exploitable vulnerability exists in the grsecurity PaX patch for the function read_kmem, in PaX from version pax-linux-4.9.8-test1 to 4.…

published 2019-10-31 7 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2019-14630

cvss
5.9
version 3.0, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.7%
EPSS 0.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 55%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

An exploitable vulnerability exists in the grsecurity PaX patch for the function read_kmem, in PaX from version pax-linux-4.9.8-test1 to 4.9.24-test7, grsecurity official from version grsecurity-3.1-4.9.8-201702060653 to grsecurity-3.1-4.9.24-201704252333, grsecurity unofficial from version v4.9.25-unofficialgrsec to v4.9.74-unofficialgrsec. PaX adds a temp buffer to the read_kmem function, which is never freed when an invalid address is supplied. This results in a memory leakage that can lead to a crash of the system. An attacker needs to induce a read to /dev/kmem using an invalid address to exploit this vulnerability.

Exploit prediction

0.74% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 55% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • talosintelligence.com https://talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2019-0784 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.0 5.9 CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 3.1 5.9 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 2.0 4.3 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P

Affected products

  • n/a PaX

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-401 Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime
  • CWE-772 Missing Release of Resource after Effective Lifetime

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.