Working Exploit for a Linux Kernel Flaw Made Public
Even before a bug received its CVE identifier or an upstream fix, the local privilege escalation vulnerability exploit found its way into the wild.
Sysdig reported that a working root exploit was discovered by TrendAI's Zero Day Initiative in the ConnMan network manager. A report, which was then sent to the Linux kernel security, included details on reproduction and disclosed that there was no patch or fix that had been released to any Linux kernel.
In total, there were six flaws reported, none of which had been assigned a CVE ID at the time, and no exploitation had been reported. One of those bugs, ZDI-CAN-33367, was the flaw associated with the public exploit; it is a local privilege escalation within the Linux network stack that received a CVSS score of 7.5.
This vulnerability is part of the kernel fix for the Dirty Frag page-cache flaw, and TuxCare was able to reproduce a root shell using the public proof of concept on AlmaLinux 8, 9, 10; Debian 12 and 13 and Ubuntu 24.04 and 26.04.
Two other vulnerabilities within the collection were rated at 9.0 and affect the kernel's Server Message Block (SMB) server. These are pre-authentication flaws that can leak memory from the kernel and cause systems to crash.
Sysdig reports that users and admins should prioritize fixes based on usage, not on CVSS scores, and suggests unloading KSMBD if it is not needed.
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