CVE-2017-15102
kernel: NULL pointer dereference due to race condition in probe function of legousbtower driver
Severity
LowRed Hat Product Security
CVSS 3.0
Review impact separately from score.
Published · September 19, 2016
Updated · May 13, 2026
Description
The tower_probe function in drivers/usb/misc/legousbtower.c in the Linux kernel before 4.8.1 allows local users (who are physically proximate for inserting a crafted USB device) to gain privileges by leveraging a write-what-where condition that occurs after a race condition and a NULL pointer dereference.
Statement
This issue affects the versions of the Linux kernel as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6. 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/.
This issue does not affect the Linux kernel packages as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and MRG-2, as this flaw was fixed in 7.4 release.
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 · 6.3CVSS:3.0/AV:P/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CWE-476 · NULL Pointer Dereference