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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2009-2692 in the critical feed json

The Linux kernel 2.6.0 through 2.6.30.4, and 2.4.4 through 2.4.37.4, does not initialize all function pointers for socket operations in pro…

published 2009-08-14 17 y ago modified 2026-06-16 4 mo ago also EUVD-2009-2685

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
14.6%
EPSS 14.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 96%
public exploits
9
Metasploit, Exploit-DB

Summary

The Linux kernel 2.6.0 through 2.6.30.4, and 2.4.4 through 2.4.37.4, does not initialize all function pointers for socket operations in proto_ops structures, which allows local users to trigger a NULL pointer dereference and gain privileges by using mmap to map page zero, placing arbitrary code on this page, and then invoking an unavailable operation, as demonstrated by the sendpage operation (sock_sendpage function) on a PF_PPPOX socket.

Patch / fix

  • linux linux_kernel 2.4.37.5, 2.6.30.5
  • kernel RHEL 3 2.4.21-60.EL
  • kernel-smp RHEL 3 2.4.21-60.EL
  • kernel-BOOT RHEL 3 2.4.21-60.EL
  • kernel-source RHEL 3 2.4.21-60.EL
  • kernel-hugemem RHEL 3 2.4.21-60.EL
  • kernel-unsupported RHEL 3 2.4.21-60.EL
  • kernel-smp-unsupported RHEL 3 2.4.21-60.EL
  • kernel-hugemem-unsupported RHEL 3 2.4.21-60.EL

red hat advisories RHSA-2009:1469RHSA-2009:1457RHSA-2009:1233RHSA-2009:1223RHSA-2009:1222RHSA-2009:1239

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-2009-2692 updated cvss 7.2

kernel: uninit op in SOCKOPS_WRAP() leads to privesc

  • Red Hat MRG Realtime for RHEL 5 Server kernel-rt 2.6.24.7-132.el5rt, kernel-rt-trace 2.6.24.7-132.el5rt, kernel-rt-vanilla 2.6.24.7-132.el5rt, kernel-rt-debuginfo-common 2.6.24.7-132.el5rt
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:1239
  • Red Hat Desktop version 3 kernel 2.4.21-60.EL, kernel-smp 2.4.21-60.EL, kernel-BOOT 2.4.21-60.EL, kernel-source 2.4.21-60.EL, kernel-hugemem 2.4.21-60.EL, kernel-unsupported 2.4.21-60.EL, +2 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:1233
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (v. 5 server) kernel 2.6.18-128.7.1.el5, kernel-PAE 2.6.18-128.7.1.el5, kernel-xen 2.6.18-128.7.1.el5, kernel-kdump 2.6.18-128.7.1.el5, kernel-debuginfo-common 2.6.18-128.7.1.el5
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:1222
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS EUS (v. 4.7) kernel 2.6.9-78.0.27.EL, kernel-smp 2.6.9-78.0.27.EL, kernel-xenU 2.6.9-78.0.27.EL, kernel-hugemem 2.6.9-78.0.27.EL, kernel-largesmp 2.6.9-78.0.27.EL
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:1469
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS version 3 kernel 2.4.21-60.EL, kernel-smp 2.4.21-60.EL, kernel-BOOT 2.4.21-60.EL, kernel-source 2.4.21-60.EL, kernel-hugemem 2.4.21-60.EL, kernel-unsupported 2.4.21-60.EL, +2 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:1233
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS version 4 kernel 2.6.9-89.0.9.EL, kernel-smp 2.6.9-89.0.9.EL, kernel-xenU 2.6.9-89.0.9.EL, kernel-hugemem 2.6.9-89.0.9.EL, kernel-largesmp 2.6.9-89.0.9.EL
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:1223
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop (v. 5 client) kernel 2.6.18-128.7.1.el5, kernel-PAE 2.6.18-128.7.1.el5, kernel-xen 2.6.18-128.7.1.el5, kernel-debuginfo-common 2.6.18-128.7.1.el5
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:1222
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop version 4 kernel 2.6.9-89.0.9.EL, kernel-smp 2.6.9-89.0.9.EL, kernel-xenU 2.6.9-89.0.9.EL, kernel-hugemem 2.6.9-89.0.9.EL, kernel-largesmp 2.6.9-89.0.9.EL
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:1223
show 6 more
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES EUS (v. 4.7) kernel 2.6.9-78.0.27.EL, kernel-smp 2.6.9-78.0.27.EL, kernel-xenU 2.6.9-78.0.27.EL, kernel-hugemem 2.6.9-78.0.27.EL, kernel-largesmp 2.6.9-78.0.27.EL
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:1469
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES version 3 kernel 2.4.21-60.EL, kernel-smp 2.4.21-60.EL, kernel-BOOT 2.4.21-60.EL, kernel-source 2.4.21-60.EL, kernel-hugemem 2.4.21-60.EL, kernel-unsupported 2.4.21-60.EL, +2 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:1233
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES version 4 kernel 2.6.9-89.0.9.EL, kernel-smp 2.6.9-89.0.9.EL, kernel-xenU 2.6.9-89.0.9.EL, kernel-hugemem 2.6.9-89.0.9.EL, kernel-largesmp 2.6.9-89.0.9.EL
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:1223
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux EUS (v. 5.2 server) kernel 2.6.18-92.1.28.el5, kernel-PAE 2.6.18-92.1.28.el5, kernel-xen 2.6.18-92.1.28.el5, kernel-kdump 2.6.18-92.1.28.el5, kernel-debuginfo-common 2.6.18-92.1.28.el5
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:1457
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS version 3 kernel 2.4.21-60.EL, kernel-smp 2.4.21-60.EL, kernel-BOOT 2.4.21-60.EL, kernel-source 2.4.21-60.EL, kernel-hugemem 2.4.21-60.EL, kernel-unsupported 2.4.21-60.EL, +2 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:1233
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS version 4 kernel 2.6.9-89.0.9.EL, kernel-smp 2.6.9-89.0.9.EL, kernel-xenU 2.6.9-89.0.9.EL, kernel-hugemem 2.6.9-89.0.9.EL, kernel-largesmp 2.6.9-89.0.9.EL
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2009:1223

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

Timeline

  1. First public exploit (Metasploit exploit/linux/local/sock_sendpage)
  2. Published

Exploit prediction

14.63% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 96% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • Metasploit exploit/linux/local/sock_sendpage Linux Kernel Sendpage Local Privilege Escalation metasploit exploit, great rank, 2009-08-13
  • EDB-19933 Linux Kernel 2.4.4 < 2.4.37.4 / 2.6.0 < 2.6.30.4 - 'Sendpage' Local Privilege Escalation (Metasploit) local, 2012-07-19
  • EDB-9641 Linux Kernel 2.4/2.6 - 'sock_sendpage()' Local Privilege Escalation (3) local, 2009-09-11
  • EDB-9598 Linux Kernel 2.4/2.6 (Fedora 11) - 'sock_sendpage()' Local Privilege Escalation (2) local, 2009-09-09
  • EDB-9545 Linux Kernel 2.4.x/2.6.x (CentOS 4.8/5.3 / RHEL 4.8/5.3 / SuSE 10 SP2/11 / Ubuntu 8.10) (PPC) - 'sock_sendpage()' Local Privilege Escalation local, 2009-08-31
  • EDB-9479 Linux Kernel 2.4/2.6 (RedHat Linux 9 / Fedora Core 4 < 11 / Whitebox 4 / CentOS 4) - 'sock_sendpage()' Ring0 Privilege Escalation (5) local, 2009-08-24
  • EDB-9477 Linux Kernel 2.x (Android) - 'sock_sendpage()' Local Privilege Escalation local, 2009-08-18
  • EDB-9436 Linux Kernel 2.x - 'sock_sendpage()' Local Privilege Escalation (4) local, 2009-08-14
  • EDB-9435 Linux Kernel 2.x (RedHat) - 'sock_sendpage()' Ring0 Privilege Escalation (1) local, 2009-08-14
  • archives.neohapsis.com http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/fulldisclosure/2009-08/0174.html referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • blog.cr0.org http://blog.cr0.org/2009/08/linux-null-pointer-dereference-due-to.html referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified
  • securityfocus.com http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/36038 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.2 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-908 Use of Uninitialized 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.