CVE-2015-5257
kernel: NULL pointer dereference in USB WhiteHEAT serial driver
Severity
LowRed Hat Product Security
CVSS 2.0
Review impact separately from score.
Published · September 22, 2015
Updated · November 21, 2025
Description
A denial of service vulnerability was found in the WhiteHEAT USB Serial Driver (whiteheat_attach function in drivers/usb/serial/whiteheat.c). In the driver, the COMMAND_PORT variable was hard coded and set to 4 (5th element). The driver assumed that the number of ports would always be 5 and used port number 5 as the command port. However, when using a USB device in which the number of ports was set to a number less than 5 (for example, 3), the driver triggered a kernel NULL-pointer dereference. A non-privileged attacker could use this flaw to panic the host.
Statement
This issue affects the Linux kernel packages as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, 6, 7 and MRG-2.
This has been rated as having Low security impact and is not currently planned to be addressed in future updates. For additional information, refer to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Life Cycle: https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata/.
CVSS score applicability
The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.
Mitigation
No mitigation is specified in collected source.
CVSS / CWE
CVSS 2.0 · 4AV:L/AC:H/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C
CWE-476 · NULL Pointer Dereference