CVE-2015-3290

high

Published 2015-08-31 · Modified 2026-05-06

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CVSS v3

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CVSS v4 NEW

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not yet in upstream

VIR risk

8.2

Description

arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S in the Linux kernel before 4.1.6 on the x86_64 platform improperly relies on espfix64 during nested NMI processing, which allows local users to gain privileges by triggering an NMI within a certain instruction window.

Predictions

Exploit likelihood

55%

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-37722 local linux_x86-64

Andrew Lutomirski · 2015-08-05

Linux Kernel - 'espfix64' Nested NMIs Interrupting Privilege Escalation

Source code queued for fetch — refresh in a moment.

OS impact

Linux kernel Affected 1 release

Version	Status	Fixed in
—	Affected	`3.12.47`

Debian Fixed 5 releases

Version	Status	Fixed in
trixie	Fixed	`4.0.8-2`
sid	Fixed	`4.0.8-2`
forky	Fixed	`4.0.8-2`
bullseye	Fixed	`4.0.8-2`
bookworm	Fixed	`4.0.8-2`

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.