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Fencer Vulns
medium 4.6

CVE-2009-1338 json

The kill_something_info function in kernel/signal.c in the Linux kernel before 2.6.28 does not consider PID namespaces when processing sign…

published 2009-04-22 17 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2009-1336

cvss
4.6
version 2.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 33%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The kill_something_info function in kernel/signal.c in the Linux kernel before 2.6.28 does not consider PID namespaces when processing signals directed to PID -1, which allows local users to bypass the intended namespace isolation, and send arbitrary signals to all processes in all namespaces, via a kill command.

Patch / fix

  • kernel-rt enterprise mrg 1 2.6.24.7-117.el5rt
  • kernel-rt-trace enterprise mrg 1 2.6.24.7-117.el5rt
  • kernel-rt-vanilla enterprise mrg 1 2.6.24.7-117.el5rt
  • kernel-rt-debuginfo-common enterprise mrg 1 2.6.24.7-117.el5rt

red hat advisories RHSA-2009:1081

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-2009-1338 updated cvss 4.9

kernel: 'kill sig -1' must only apply to caller's pid namespace

  • Red Hat MRG Realtime for RHEL 5 Server kernel-rt 2.6.24.7-117.el5rt, kernel-rt-trace 2.6.24.7-117.el5rt, kernel-rt-vanilla 2.6.24.7-117.el5rt, kernel-rt-debuginfo-common 2.6.24.7-117.el5rt
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:1081

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

Exploit prediction

0.39% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 33% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 2.0 4.6 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-264 Permissions, Privileges, and Access Controls
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.