CVE-2008-3275: Canonical Ubuntu Linux

Medium severity, CVSS 5.5. EPSS: 0.5% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

The (1) real_lookup and (2) __lookup_hash functions in fs/namei.c in the vfs implementation in the Linux kernel before 2.6.25.15 do not prevent creation of a child dentry for a deleted (aka S_DEAD) directory, which allows local users to cause a denial of service ("overflow" of the UBIFS orphan area) via a series of attempted file creations within deleted directories.

Affected products

• Canonical Ubuntu Linux: version 6.06 only; version 7.04 only; version 7.10 only; version 8.04 only
• Debian Debian Linux: version 4.0 only
• Linux Linux Kernel: before 2.6.25.15 (fixed in 2.6.25.15)
• Suse Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop: version 10 only
• Suse Suse Linux Enterprise Server: version 10 only

Published 2008-08-12. Last modified 2026-06-16.