CVE-2012-0056

medium

Published 2012-01-27 · Modified 2026-04-29

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CVSS v3

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CVSS v4 NEW

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not yet in upstream

VIR risk

7.9

Description

The mem_write function in the Linux kernel before 3.2.2, when ASLR is disabled, does not properly check permissions when writing to /proc/<pid>/mem, which allows local users to gain privileges by modifying process memory, as demonstrated by Mempodipper.

Predictions

Exploit likelihood

20%

Patch ETA

—

Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.

Mitigations

No mitigations published for this CVE yet.

The vendor-content worker queues fetches as references arrive (check back in a few minutes). Or — if you've already worked around this in production — publish your fix to the community-verified tier.

✚ Propose a mitigation on Community → Mitigations published via the community go through AI scoring + 2 human reviewers + 7-day silent objection window before landing here with source_tier=community-verified.

Exploits

Public proof-of-concept code below. AS-IS, for defenders and authorised testing only.

Exploit-DB

EDB-18411 local linux verified

zx2c4 · 2012-01-23

Linux Kernel 2.6.39 < 3.2.2 (Gentoo / Ubuntu x86/x64) - 'Mempodipper' Local Privilege Escalation (1)

Source code queued for fetch — refresh in a moment.

EDB-35161 local linux verified

zx2c4 · 2012-01-12

Linux Kernel 2.6.39 < 3.2.2 (x86/x64) - 'Mempodipper' Local Privilege Escalation (2)

Source code queued for fetch — refresh in a moment.

OS impact

Linux kernel Affected 1 release

Version	Status	Fixed in
—	Affected	`3.0.18`

References

CWEs

CWE-264

Community-verified mitigations for this CVE will appear above when contributors publish them.

Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.