VULNERABILITY INTELLIGENCE

CVE-2020-12656

CVSS score5.5 MEDIUM
EPSS probability0.33%
CISA KEVNot currently listed
Published2020-05-05
Last modified2026-06-17
CVSS vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Description

gss_mech_free in net/sunrpc/auth_gss/gss_mech_switch.c in the rpcsec_gss_krb5 implementation in the Linux kernel through 5.6.10 lacks certain domain_release calls, leading to a memory leak. Note: This was disputed with the assertion that the issue does not grant any access not already available. It is a problem that on unloading a specific kernel module some memory is leaked, but loading kernel modules is a privileged operation. A user could also write a kernel module to consume any amount of memory they like and load that replicating the effect of this bug

Weakness classification

  • CWE-401: Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime

Primary references