CVE-2010-2955: Canonical Ubuntu Linux

Low severity, CVSS 2.1. EPSS: 0.4% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

The cfg80211_wext_giwessid function in net/wireless/wext-compat.c in the Linux kernel before 2.6.36-rc3-next-20100831 does not properly initialize certain structure members, which allows local users to leverage an off-by-one error in the ioctl_standard_iw_point function in net/wireless/wext-core.c, and obtain potentially sensitive information from kernel heap memory, via vectors involving an SIOCGIWESSID ioctl call that specifies a large buffer size.

Affected products

• Canonical Ubuntu Linux: version 6.06 only; version 8.04 only; version 9.04 only; version 9.10 only; version 10.04 only; version 10.10 only
• Linux Linux Kernel: before 2.6.36 (fixed in 2.6.36); version 2.6.36 only
• Opensuse Opensuse: version 11.1 only
• Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop: version 11 only
• Suse Linux Enterprise Real Time Extension: version 11 only
• Suse Linux Enterprise Server: version 11 only

Published 2010-09-08. Last modified 2026-06-16.