What is CVE-2018-10938?

CVE-2018-10938 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux Kernel, classified under Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition (Infinite Loop). CVSS score: 5.9/10. Published 2018-08-27.

How severe is CVE-2018-10938?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.9 out of 10.

Vulnerability in Linux Kernel

CVE-2018-10938

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel present since v4.0-rc1 and through v4.13-rc4. A crafted network packet sent remotely by an attacker may force the kernel to enter an infinite loop in the cipso_v4_optptr() function in net/ipv4/cipso_ipv4.c leading to a denial-of-service. A certain non-default configuration of LSM (Linux Security Module) and NetLabel should be set up on a system before an attacker could leverage this flaw.

Published 2018-08-27 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.9 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.050 (92.0th percentile), scored 2026-10-01.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 92nd percentile — 92.0% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.050 · newest: 0.050 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Linux Kernel — versions 4.0, 4.1, 4.2
Canonical Ubuntu Linux — versions 14.04, 16.04
Debian Linux — versions 9.0

Weakness classification (CWE)

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

References

seclists.org/oss-sec/2018/q3/179 (mailing-list, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
usn.ubuntu.com/3797-2/ (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)
usn.ubuntu.com/3797-1/ (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)
git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/ (Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2018/10/msg00003.html (mailing-list, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
www.securitytracker.com/id/1041569 (VDB Entry, Third Party Advisory, vdb-entry)
bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi (Third Party Advisory, Issue Tracking)
www.securityfocus.com/bid/105154 (VDB Entry, Third Party Advisory, vdb-entry)
www.debian.org/security/2018/dsa-4308 (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2018-10938?: CVE-2018-10938 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux Kernel, classified under Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition (Infinite Loop). CVSS score: 5.9/10. Published 2018-08-27.
How severe is CVE-2018-10938?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.9 out of 10.