CVE-2016-7916
kernel: proc: prevent accessing /proc/ /environ until it's ready
Severity
LowRed Hat Product Security
CVSS 3.0
Review impact separately from score.
Published · January 19, 2016
Updated · November 21, 2025
Description
Race condition in the environ_read() function in 'fs/proc/base.c' in the Linux kernel before 4.5.4 allows local users to obtain sensitive information from kernel memory by reading a '/proc/*/environ' file during a process-setup time interval in which environment-variable copying is incomplete.
Statement
This issue does not affect the Linux kernel packages as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, 6 as the code with the flaw is not present in the products listed.
This issue affects the Linux kernel packages as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and Red Hat Enterprise 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 3.0 · 2.3CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
CVSS 2.0 · 1.5AV:L/AC:M/Au:S/C:P/I:N/A:N
CWE-362 · Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization ('Race Condition')