What is CVE-2017-18261?

CVE-2017-18261 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux Kernel, classified under Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition (Infinite Loop). CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2018-04-19.

How severe is CVE-2017-18261?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.

Vulnerability in Linux Kernel

CVE-2017-18261

The arch_timer_reg_read_stable macro in arch/arm64/include/asm/arch_timer.h in the Linux kernel before 4.13 allows local users to cause a denial of service (infinite recursion) by writing to a file under /sys/kernel/debug in certain circumstances, as demonstrated by a scenario involving debugfs, ftrace, PREEMPT_TRACER, and FUNCTION_GRAPH_TRACER.

Published 2018-04-19 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.003 (23.6th percentile), scored 2026-10-01.

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 24th percentile — 23.6% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.003 · newest: 0.003 · change: -0.000

Affected products

Linux Kernel

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-835 — Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition (Infinite Loop)

References

git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/ (Patch, Vendor Advisory)
github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/adb4f11e0a8f4e29900adb2b7af28b6bbd5c1fa4 (Patch, Vendor Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2017-18261?: CVE-2017-18261 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux Kernel, classified under Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition (Infinite Loop). CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2018-04-19.
How severe is CVE-2017-18261?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.