Local service interruption via coredump pipe deadlock
Published Nov 23, 2022 · Updated Apr 25, 2025
Denial of service in systemd 250 and 251 allows local users to deadlock systemd-coredump by triggering crashes with long backtraces. In parse_elf_object, a forked child writes generated backtrace data into a blocking pipe while the parent waits for the child to exit, so output beyond the pipe capacity blocks both processes. Exploitation requires a deeply nested executable with recursive calls and enough concurrent crashes to fill the configured socket connections, interrupting further coredump processing.
Summary
What happened
Denial of service in systemd 250 and 251 allows local users to deadlock systemd-coredump by triggering crashes with long backtraces. In parse_elf_object, a forked child writes generated backtrace data into a blocking pipe while the parent waits for the child to exit, so output beyond the pipe capacity blocks both processes. Exploitation requires a deeply nested executable with recursive calls and enough concurrent crashes to fill the configured socket connections, interrupting further coredump processing.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2022-45873
- Published
- Nov 23, 2022
- Updated
- Apr 25, 2025
- Vendor
- Unknown vendor
- Product
- Unknown product
- Classifications
- CWE-400, T1499
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Nov 23, 2022CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Apr 25, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
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What is affected?
Affected products and versions are unavailable in this record.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
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Public exploit references
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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