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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2020-10781 json

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 th…

published 2020-09-16 6 y ago modified 2026-10-08 31 d ago also EUVD-2020-3194

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.3%
EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 24%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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.

Patch / fix

  • linux linux_kernel 5.8.0
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.7.10-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2020-10781

  • linux Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-115.116
  • linux Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-45.49
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-1080.84
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1022.22
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 4.15.0-1081.92~16.04.1
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1022.22
  • linux-hwe Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 4.15.0-115.116~16.04.1
  • linux-kvm Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-1072.73

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2020-10781

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel-syms SLES for SAP 15, SLES 15-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15-LTSS +1 more 4.12.14-150.66.1
  • kernel-source SLES for SAP 15, SLES 15-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15-LTSS +1 more 4.12.14-150.66.1
  • kernel-default SLES for SAP 15, SLES 15-LTSS, SLE Live Patching 15 +3 more 4.12.14-150.66.1
  • kernel-vanilla SLES for SAP 15, SLES 15-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15-LTSS +1 more 4.12.14-150.66.1
  • kernel-obs-build SLES for SAP 15, SLES 15-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15-LTSS +1 more 4.12.14-150.66.1
  • kernel-rt Real Time Module 15 SP1 4.12.14-14.28.1
  • kernel-syms-rt Real Time Module 15 SP1 4.12.14-14.28.1
  • kernel-rt_debug Real Time Module 15 SP1 4.12.14-14.28.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2021:0438-1SUSE-SU-2020:2487-1SUSE-SU-2020:2478-1SUSE-SU-2020:2122-1SUSE-SU-2020:2119-1SUSE-SU-2020:2107-1

  • kernel-rt openSUSE Leap 15.2 5.3.18-lp152.3.5.1
  • kernel-syms-rt openSUSE Leap 15.2 5.3.18-lp152.3.5.1
  • kernel-rt_debug openSUSE Leap 15.2 5.3.18-lp152.3.5.1
  • kernel-source-rt openSUSE Leap 15.2 5.3.18-lp152.3.5.1
  • dpdk openSUSE Leap 15.2 19.11.1-lp152.2.5.1
  • drbd openSUSE Leap 15.2 9.0.22~1+git.fe2b5983-lp152.2.2.1
  • crash openSUSE Leap 15.2 7.2.8-lp152.3.2.1
  • mhvtl openSUSE Leap 15.2 1.62-lp152.2.2.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2021:0242-1openSUSE-SU-2020:1236-1openSUSE-SU-2020:1153-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2020-10781 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: zram sysfs resource consumption

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-alt, python-perf, +9 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Enterprise MRG 2 kernel-rt, mrg-rt-release, kernel-rt-trace, kernel-rt-vanilla, kernel-rt-firmware
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Out of support scope”

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
31 d ago

Exploit prediction

0.31% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 24% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 2.0 4.9 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C

Affected products

  • Linux Kernel kernel

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-732 Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource
Technology feeds

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.