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CISA KEV · ACTIVELY EXPLOITED
HIGH severity

CVE-2010-3904 — Linux kernel

HIGH

CVE-2010-3904 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.8) CWE-1284 vulnerability. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2023-05-12) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.

The rds_page_copy_user function in net/rds/page.c in the Reliable Datagram Sockets (RDS) protocol implementation in the Linux kernel before 2.6.36 does not properly validate addresses…

Published
Updated
Affected
8 products
Patched
See advisory
Exploits
6 known
Exploitation data as of Oct 22, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, CISA KEV, FIRST.org (EPSS)

Exploitation Status

Actively exploited in the wild

  • Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2023-05-12. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2023-06-02.
  • A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.

Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2010-3904.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
15.9%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Moderate Risk+1.39%
Lower risk than most CVEs97th percentile — riskier than 97% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
0.00%6.72%13.4%20.1%1.6%2.3%11.2%14.5%15.9%Apr 26Jul 26Oct 26

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

CVE-2010-3904 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.

Where this sits among everything scored

Of 395,249 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 10–50% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.

Description

The rds_page_copy_user function in net/rds/page.c in the Reliable Datagram Sockets (RDS) protocol implementation in the Linux kernel before 2.6.36 does not properly validate addresses obtained from user space, which allows local users to gain privileges via crafted use of the sendmsg and recvmsg system calls.

Affected Products

8 products · 18 configurations
OS
ubuntu linuxcanonical
6 versions
6.068.049.049.1010.0410.10
OS
linux kernellinux
< 2.6.36
range
OS
opensuseopensuse
2 versions
11.211.3
OS
enterprise linuxredhat
2 versions
5.06.0
OS
linux enterprise desktopsuse
1 version
11
OS
linux enterprise real time extensionsuse
1 version
11
Exploits & PoCs
6

Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.

EDB-44677locallinux✓ Verified

Linux 2.6.30 < 2.6.36-rc8 - Reliable Datagram Sockets (RDS) Privilege Escalation (Metasploit)

by Metasploit · May 21, 2018

Exploit-DB Source
EDB-15285locallinux✓ Verified

Linux Kernel 2.6.36-rc8 - 'RDS Protocol' Local Privilege Escalation

by Dan Rosenberg · Oct 19, 2010

Exploit-DB Source

Detection & mitigation playbook

Vulnerability

  1. Detect

    Identify every host running the affected component and compare the installed build against the fixed version below — for source-built or distro-packaged software the version string, not a lockfile, is the source of truth (`dpkg -l`, `rpm -q`, or the binary's own `--version`).

  2. Remediation status

    No fixed release is recorded for CVE-2010-3904 yet. Track the upstream advisory, and apply the exposure-reduction steps below in the meantime.

  3. Mitigate without a patch

    Cap what an attacker can consume: apply request size, rate and timeout limits in front of the affected component, and run it with memory and CPU limits so exhaustion degrades one worker rather than the whole service.

Fixing This On Your OS

If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.

Red HatImportant

The Linux kernel as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, 4 and Red Hat Enterprise MRG did not include support for the RDS Protocol, and therefore are not affected by this issue. Updates for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6 are available to address this flaw.

Workaround published by Red Hat
For users that do not run applications that use RDS, you can prevent the rds module from being loaded by adding the following entry to the end of the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file: blacklist rds This way, the rds module cannot be loaded accidentally, which may occur if an application that requires RDS is started. A reboot is not necessary for this change to take effect but do make sure the module is not loaded in the first place. You can verify that by running: lsmod | grep rds You may also consider removing the CAP_SYS_MODULE capability from the current global capability set to prevent kernel modules from being loaded or unloaded. The CAP_SYS_MODULE has a capability number of 16 (see…
Source: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2010-3904 (CC BY 4.0)
ProductFixed inAdvisory
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5kernel-0:2.6.18-194.17.4.el5RHSA-2010:0792
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6kernel-0:2.6.32-71.7.1.el6RHSA-2010:0842

Frequently Asked Questions

The rds_page_copy_user function in net/rds/page.c in the Reliable Datagram Sockets (RDS) protocol implementation in the Linux kernel before 2.6.36 does not properly validate addresses obtained from user space, which allows local users to gain privileges via crafted use of the sendmsg and recvmsg system calls.
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Actively Exploited: CVE-2010-3904: Linux kernel (High 7.8)