CVE-2020-14351

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel. A use-after-free memory flaw was found in the perf subsystem allowing a local attacker with permission to monitor perf events to corrupt memory and possibly escalate privileges. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data confidentiality and integrity as well as system availability.

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2 and later kernels default to a safe /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_paranoid setting; local administrators may have reason to change the setting to allow non privileged users to monitor performance statistics.

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.

While there is no way to disable the perf subsystem on Linux systems, reducing or removing users access to the perf events can effectively mitigate this flaw. Upstream kernel documentation has been written regarding this mechanism: https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/perf-security.html.