CVE-2005-2099: Linux Kernel

Medium severity, CVSS 5.0. EPSS: 3.3% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

The Linux kernel before 2.6.12.5 does not properly destroy a keyring that is not instantiated properly, which allows local users or remote attackers to cause a denial of service (kernel oops) via a keyring with a payload that is not empty, which causes the creation to fail, leading to a null dereference in the keyring destructor.

Affected products

• Linux Linux Kernel: version 2.6.0 only; version 2.6.1 only; version 2.6.2 only; version 2.6.3 only; version 2.6.4 only; version 2.6.5 only; …

Published 2005-08-23. Last modified 2026-06-16.