# CVE-2010-4258: Turning denial-of-service into privilege escalation

DevFeed: [CVE-2010-4258: Turning denial-of-service into privilege escalation](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/cve-2010-4258-turning-denial-of-service-into-privilege-escalation-21925.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://blog.nelhage.com/2010/12/cve-2010-4258-from-dos-to-privesc/>)

Author: Nelson Elhage

Published: 2010-12-10T12:02:11Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Nelson Elhage](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/nelson-elhage.md>)

Topics: [Exploit](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/exploit.md>), [Kernel](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/kernel.md>), [Linux](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/linux.md>), [bug](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/bug.md>)

Tags: [cve](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cve.md>), [exploit](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/exploit.md>), [kernel](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/kernel.md>), [linux](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/linux.md>), [vulnerabilities](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/vulnerabilities.md>)

## AI overview

This article examines CVE-2010-4258, a Linux privilege-escalation vulnerability. It explains how several kernel features could combine to turn a kernel oops and denial-of-service condition into privilege escalation, including user-pointer checks, temporary overrides, and process-context behavior.

## Source excerpt

Dan Rosenberg recently released a privilege escalation bug for Linux, based on three different kernel vulnerabilities I reported recently. This post is about CVE-2010-4258, the most interesting of them, and, as Dan writes, the reason he wrote the exploit in the first place. In it, I'm going to do a brief tour of the various kernel features that collided to make this bug possible, and explain how they combine to turn an otherwise-boring oops into privilege escalation.