CVE-2009-1895: The personality subsystem in the Linux kernel before 2.6.31-rc3 has a PER_CLEAR_ON_SETID setting that does...

Security readout for executives and security teams

This is an old Linux kernel weakness affecting systems before 2.6.31-rc3, or vendor kernels without the backported fix. A local user could preserve unsafe memory-layout settings when running setuid or setgid programs, reducing protections that normally make privilege attacks harder. Exposure is most likely on legacy Linux distributions, appliances, or virtualization service consoles running affected 2009-era kernels. Public sources name Linux before 2.6.31-rc3 and advisories from Red Hat, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, rPath, and VMware. Treat this as a legacy-system exposure issue. It is not described as remotely exploitable, but it weakens important Linux privilege protections. Prioritize internet-facing appliances, shared servers, and unsupported systems where local access is plausible. Mitigation focus: Apply the vendor kernel update that addresses CVE-2009-1895.; Confirm fixes for vendor-backported kernels, not only upstream version numbers.; Retire or isolate unsupported legacy Linux and ESX service-console systems..

Prepared

Jun 28, 2026, 10:26 UTC (UTC+00:00)

Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.