Resource exhaustion in Linux

CVE-2021-47170

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: USB: usbfs: Don't WARN about excessively large memory allocations Syzbot found that the kernel generates a WARNing if the user tries to submit a bulk transfer through usbfs with a buffer that is way too large. This isn't a bug in the kernel; it's merely an invalid request from the user and the usbfs code does handle it correctly. In theory the same thing can happen with async transfers, or with the packet descriptor table for isochronous transfers. To prevent the MM subsystem from complaining about these bad allocation requests, add the __GFP_NOWARN flag to the kmalloc calls for these buffers.

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (13.2th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 13th percentile — 13.2% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2021-47170: held from 0.002 to 0.002.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.002 · newest: 0.002 · change: 0.000

Affected products

  • Linux — versions add1aaeabe6b08ed26381a2a06e505b2f09c3ba5, 3.3, 0
  • Linux Kernel — versions 5.13

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2021-47170?
CVE-2021-47170 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux, classified under Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2024-03-25.
How severe is CVE-2021-47170?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.
Is CVE-2021-47170 known to be exploited?
1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.