CVE-2010-3081: Linux Kernel

High severity, CVSS 7.8. EPSS: 3.5% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

The compat_alloc_user_space functions in include/asm/compat.h files in the Linux kernel before 2.6.36-rc4-git2 on 64-bit platforms do not properly allocate the userspace memory required for the 32-bit compatibility layer, which allows local users to gain privileges by leveraging the ability of the compat_mc_getsockopt function (aka the MCAST_MSFILTER getsockopt support) to control a certain length value, related to a "stack pointer underflow" issue, as exploited in the wild in September 2010.

Affected products

• Linux Linux Kernel: up to and including 2.6.35.4; version 2.6.36 only
• Suse Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop: version 11 only
• Suse Suse Linux Enterprise Server: version 11 only
• VMware Esx: version 4.0 only; version 4.1 only

Published 2010-09-24. Last modified 2026-06-16.