CVE-2017-1000253
Memory Safety in Centos 6.0 … 7.1611
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2017-1000253 is a high-severity Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer (CWE-119) vulnerability in Centos Centos. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).
Operationally, ranked in the top 4% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; CISA has added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
The vulnerability is a memory mapping flaw in the Linux kernel's ELF loader affecting long-term supported kernels that lack the fix from commit a87938b2e246b81b4fb713edb371a9fa3c5c3c86 (originally merged in April 2015 and backported to 3.10.77 in May 2015). When CONFIG_ARCH_BINFMT_ELF_RANDOMIZE_PIE is enabled along with standard top-down address allocation, load_elf_binary() places the first PT_LOAD segment of a PIE binary below mm->mmap_base but maps subsequent segments above it into the intended gap between the stack and the binary image. This issue was not initially treated as a security problem despite the incorrect layout.
A local attacker with the ability to execute a PIE binary can trigger the faulty mapping, resulting in memory corruption that yields high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability as reflected in the CVSS 7.8 score and CWE-119 classification.
Red Hat security advisories RHSA-2017:2793, RHSA-2017:2794, and RHSA-2017:2795, along with related trackers, address the issue through updated kernel packages that incorporate the 2015 mapping correction for affected distributions.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2017-1514
Vulnerability Data
Linux distributions that have not patched their long-term kernels with https://git.kernel.org/linus/a87938b2e246b81b4fb713edb371a9fa3c5c3c86 (committed on April 14, 2015). This kernel vulnerability was fixed in April 2015 by commit a87938b2e246b81b4fb713edb371a9fa3c5c3c86 (backported to Linux 3.10.77 in May 2015), but it was not recognized as…
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a security threat. With CONFIG_ARCH_BINFMT_ELF_RANDOMIZE_PIE enabled, and a normal top-down address allocation strategy, load_elf_binary() will attempt to map a PIE binary into an address range immediately below mm->mmap_base. Unfortunately, load_elf_ binary() does not take account of the need to allocate sufficient space for the entire binary which means that, while the first PT_LOAD segment is mapped below mm->mmap_base, the subsequent PT_LOAD segment(s) end up being mapped above mm->mmap_base into the are that is supposed to be the "gap" between the stack and the binary.
- CWE(s)
- KEV Date Added
- 09 September 2024
Related Threats
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Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
Ongoing control assessments and code testing (static/dynamic analysis, fuzzing) surface memory buffer restriction failures, which are then remediated before release.
Managed runtimes used by platform-independent applications (e.g., JVM, CLR) enforce memory safety, preventing most buffer overflows that require direct memory manipulation.
Memory protections (e.g., W^X, ASLR) make exploitation of buffer-boundary violations far harder to turn into code execution.
Detects exploitation attempts that produce memory corruption, crashes, or anomalous behavior.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
A.8.25 mandates secure SDLC practices (secure coding guidelines, security requirements, testing including code scans and penetration tests, developer training) that reach buffer management and can stop many buffer overruns from reaching production, but leaves a bounded remainder (e.g. flaws in non-software components, incomplete enforcement of guidelines, or post-deployment changes)
Application security requirements can specify memory-safety rules, but do not prescribe implementation details.
A.8.27 mandates security-by-design principles (e.g. least privilege, fail securely, distrust external input, hardening) plus design reviews that can catch and stop buffer-boundary errors before they reach code, but this is only one minority slice of CWE-119's broad surface (language-specific flaws, unsafe library use, compiler/runtime mitigations, and post-deployment instances remain outside its direct scope).
Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe buffer operations, directly eliminating CWE-119.
Security testing in development catches out-of-bounds accesses before release, covering most instances of the weakness.
Hardening callouts derived
DISA STIG baselines are authored against specific weaknesses. Where this CVE cites a broad weakness class, the mapping is not asserted at that abstraction (owner ruling, 2026-09-25: grade only at Base and below), so no rule is shown here rather than a rule shown against the wrong grain.
- No fine-grained STIG row for CWE-119, a class-level weakness. Rules are authored against its narrower children: CWE-823.