CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2019-3901 — A race condition in perf_event_open() allows local attackers to leak sensitive data from setuid programs

Medium CVSS 5.6

A race condition in perf_event_open() allows local attackers to leak sensitive data from setuid programs. As no relevant locks (in particular the cred_guard_mutex) are held during the ptrace_may_access() call, it is possible for the specified target task to perform an execve() syscall with setuid execution before perf_event_alloc() actually attaches to it, allowing an attacker to bypass the ptrace_may_access() check and the perf_event_exit_task(current) call that is performed in install_exec_creds() during privileged execve() calls. This issue affects kernel versions before 4.8.

Severity
Medium
CVSS
5.6 (3.0)
Published
2019-04-22
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-667

Affected products

  • linux / linux_kernel
  • debian / debian_linux / 8.0
  • netapp / active_iq_unified_manager_for_vmware_vsphere
  • netapp / hci_management_node
  • netapp / snapprotect
  • netapp / solidfire

Showing 6 representative product identities from 10 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Race condition, TOCTOU, and lifecycle synchronization

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Check exposure

  • Map concurrent actors, shared state, lock boundaries, signals, callbacks, retries, and check-then-use sequences in the affected path.
  • Determine whether untrusted users can influence timing, object names, filesystem state, or repeated state transitions.
  • Identify clustered and multi-process behavior that repository-local tests may not represent.

Remediate safely

  • Make the sensitive state transition atomic or protect it with a consistently ordered synchronization primitive.
  • Perform authorization and invariant checks on the same authoritative object and transaction used for the operation.
  • Use unique private resources, safe ownership transfer, and idempotent operations; add deterministic concurrency regression tests.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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