CVE-2019-5023
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…
- Published
- Updated
- Reserved
- Assigned by
- talos
Description
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.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| talosCNA (assigner) | 3.0 | Medium5.9 | CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H |
| NVDNVD · Modified | 3.1 | Medium5.9 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.74% · top 45% of all CVEs (6 Nov 2026)
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: Medium 5.9.
Weakness
Affected products
PaX
- affected PaX pax-linux-4.9.24-test7.patch (latest version available to the public) grsecurity grsecurity-3.1-4.9.24-201704252333.patch (latest official version available to the public) v4.9.74-unofficial_grsec (latest unofficial version available to the public)
References (1)
- https://talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2019-0784 (opens in a new tab)x_refsource_MISCx_transferred
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://trackcve.app/cve/CVE-2019-5023)Record last updated .