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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2017-9605 json

The vmw_gb_surface_define_ioctl function (accessible via DRM_IOCTL_VMW_GB_SURFACE_CREATE) in drivers/gpu/drm/vmwgfx/vmwgfx_surface.c in the…

published 2017-06-13 9 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2017-18536

cvss
5.5
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 34%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The vmw_gb_surface_define_ioctl function (accessible via DRM_IOCTL_VMW_GB_SURFACE_CREATE) in drivers/gpu/drm/vmwgfx/vmwgfx_surface.c in the Linux kernel through 4.11.4 defines a backup_handle variable but does not give it an initial value. If one attempts to create a GB surface, with a previously allocated DMA buffer to be used as a backup buffer, the backup_handle variable does not get written to and is then later returned to user space, allowing local users to obtain sensitive information from uninitialized kernel memory via a crafted ioctl call.

Patch / fix

  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 4.11.6-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2017-9605

  • linux Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 3.13.0-125.174
  • linux Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 4.4.0-87.110
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 4.4.0-1026.35
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 4.4.0-1022.22
  • linux-hwe Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 4.10.0-32.36~16.04.1
  • linux-raspi2 Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 4.4.0-1065.73
  • linux-lts-xenial Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 4.4.0-87.110~14.04.1
  • linux-snapdragon Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 4.4.0-1067.72

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2017-9605

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

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-2017-9605 updated cvss 3.3

kernel: Uninitialized kernel memory leak in vmw_gb_surface_define_ioctl function

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise MRG 2 kernel-rt, mrg-rt-release, kernel-rt-trace, kernel-rt-vanilla, kernel-rt-firmware
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 kernel
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

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

0.40% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 34% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 5.5 CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
NVD 2.0 4.9 AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:N/A:N

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-200 Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor
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.