Security researchers have discovered a potentialy serious security vulnerability within a Linux kernel memory management module.

The vulnerability is not remotely executable but it does allow privilege escalation. A hacker who obtains access to a local PC could be able to root a box.

At fault is a bug with the mremap(2) system sub-process, which was subject to an unrelated (but also significant) security problem a few weeks ago.

By John Leyden at The Register.

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