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Public proof of conceptFix available

CVE-2018-8897

A public proof of concept exists; no exploitation attested.

  • Published2018-05-08
  • WeaknessCWE-362

Am I affected?

With a domain, we read the version its public headers and pages expose. A distribution build can carry the fix under an older number.

Description

A statement in the System Programming Guide of the Intel 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer's Manual (SDM) was mishandled in the development of some or all operating-system kernels, resulting in unexpected behavior for #DB exceptions that are deferred by MOV SS or POP SS, as demonstrated by (for example) privilege escalation in Windows, macOS, some Xen configurations, or FreeBSD, or a Linux kernel crash. The MOV to SS and POP SS instructions inhibit interrupts (including NMIs), data breakpoints, and single step trap exceptions until the instruction boundary following the next instruction (SDM Vol. 3A; section 6.8.3). (The inhibited data breakpoints are those on memory accessed by the MOV to SS or POP to SS instruction itself.) Note that debug exceptions are not inhibited by the interrupt enable (EFLAGS.IF) system flag (SDM Vol. 3A; section 2.3). If the instruction following the MOV to SS or POP to SS instruction is an instruction like SYSCALL, SYSENTER, INT 3, etc. that transfers control to the operating system at CPL < 3, the debug exception is delivered after the transfer to CPL < 3 is complete. OS kernels may not expect this order of events and may therefore experience unexpected behavior when it occurs.

Timeline

dates in UTC
  1. 2018-05-0818:29CVE publishedNVD
  2. 2018-05-22Exploit-DB entryExploit-DB

Observed activity

isMalicious corpus · updated 2026-11-03 09:37 UTC
Indicators tagged with this CVE, per day0 indicators over 7 days
Block these indicators
  • Firewall list (EDL, text): https://api.ismalicious.com/edl/cve/CVE-2018-8897?format=txt
  • CSV export: https://api.ismalicious.com/edl/cve/CVE-2018-8897?format=csv
  • TAXII collection of exploited CVEs
  • The EDL and CSV take an API key on the Pro plan.

Versions per branch

NVD
Citrix xenserver
BranchAffectedFixed in
6.0= 6.0.2no fix published
6.2= 6.2.0no fix published
6.5= 6.5no fix published
7.0= 7.0no fix published
7.1= 7.1no fix published
7.2= 7.2no fix published
7.3= 7.3no fix published
7.4= 7.4no fix published
Canonical ubuntu linux
BranchAffectedFixed in
14.4= 14.04no fix published
16.4= 16.04no fix published
17.10= 17.10no fix published
Debian debian linux
BranchAffectedFixed in
7.0= 7.0no fix published
8.0= 8.0no fix published
9.0= 9.0no fix published

8 more products in the sources.

as publishedRanges as NVD and OSV publish them; a distribution’s build can be fixed under an older number.

Distribution builds and vendor advisories

Packages from OSV.dev and products from the vendors' CSAF advisories.

version not verifiedVersions not verified: read as OSV.dev and the vendors publish them, not checked against each vendor's release list.

Packages

  • imgbasedRed Hat:enterprise_linux:7::hypervisorall versions · fixed in 0:1.0.16-0.1.el7evand 1 other package
  • kernelRed Hat:rhel_tus:7.2::serverall versions · fixed in 0:3.10.0-327.66.3.el7and 17 other packages
  • kernelRed Hat:rhel_tus:6.6::serverall versions · fixed in 0:2.6.32-504.68.2.el6and 14 other packages
  • kernelRed Hat:rhel_eus:7.4::serverall versions · fixed in 0:3.10.0-693.25.4.el7and 24 other packages
  • kernelRed Hat:rhel_eus:7.4::computenodeall versions · fixed in 0:3.10.0-693.25.4.el7and 17 other packages
  • kernelRed Hat:rhel_eus:7.3::serverall versions · fixed in 0:3.10.0-514.48.3.el7and 24 other packages
  • kernelRed Hat:rhel_eus:7.3::computenodeall versions · fixed in 0:3.10.0-514.48.3.el7and 17 other packages
  • kernelRed Hat:rhel_eus:6.7::serverall versions · fixed in 0:2.6.32-573.55.2.el6and 21 other packages

171 more package ranges on OSV.dev

Vendor advisories

  • CVE-2018-8897 Red Hat Product Security998 products fixed · 18 known affected

    Kernel: error in exception handling leads to DoS

    kernel as a component of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 · kernel-abi-whitelists as a component of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 · kernel-alt.src as a component of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 · +15 more

  • RHSA-2018:1711 Red Hat Product Security4 products fixed

    Red Hat Security Advisory: rhev-hypervisor7 security update

  • RHSA-2018:1710 Red Hat Product Security2 products fixed

    Red Hat Security Advisory: redhat-virtualization-host security update

  • RHSA-2018:1524 Red Hat Product Security10 products fixed

    Red Hat Security Advisory: redhat-virtualization-host bug fix and enhancement update

  • RHSA-2018:1353 Red Hat Product Security38 products fixed

    Red Hat Security Advisory: kernel security update

  • RHSA-2018:1352 Red Hat Product Security27 products fixed

    Red Hat Security Advisory: kernel security update

11 more advisories

Full record on NVD

Fix

  1. Vendor fix Red Hat Product Security RHSA-2018:1711 · 4 productsFor details on how to apply this update, which includes the changes described in this advisory, refer to: https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258
  2. Vendor fix Red Hat Product Security RHSA-2018:1524 · 10 productsBefore applying this update, make sure all previously released errata relevant to your system have been applied. For details on how to apply this update, refer to: https://access.redhat.com/articles/2974891
  3. Vendor fix Red Hat Product Security RHSA-2018:1353 · 38 productsFor details on how to apply this update, which includes the changes described in this advisory, refer to: https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258 The system must be rebooted for this update to take effect.

Advisories and patches

Detection

read 2026-11-02 22:42 UTC
Nuclei template
none so far
ProjectDiscovery
Exploit-DB
EDB-44697EDB-45024
Exploit-DB
Proof-of-concept repositories
4 repositories, unverifiednmulasmajic/CVE-2018-8897jiazhang0/pop-mov-ss-exploitcan1357/CVE-2018-8897nmulasmajic/syscall_exploit_CVE-2018-8897
PoC-in-GitHub
Metasploit modules
1 moduleexploit/windows/local/mov_ssrank: excellentModule metadata: Metasploit Framework, © Rapid7, Inc., BSD-3-Clause.
Metasploit Framework

Sources

Identifiers

Technical details

CVSS v3 Vector
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Published
2018-05-08
Last Modified
2026-06-17
NVD status
Modified

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2018-8897?

A statement in the System Programming Guide of the Intel 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer's Manual (SDM) was mishandled in the development of some or all operating-system kernels, resulting in unexpected behavior for #DB exceptions that are deferred by MOV SS or POP SS, as demonstrated by (for example) privilege escalation in Windows, macOS, some Xen configurations, or FreeBSD, or a Linux kernel crash. The MOV to SS and POP SS instructions inhibit interrupts (including NMIs), data breakpoints, and single step trap exceptions until the instruction boundary following the next instruction (SDM Vol. 3A; section 6.8.3). (The inhibited data breakpoints are those on memory accessed by the MOV to SS or POP to SS instruction itself.) Note that debug exceptions are not inhibited by the interrupt enable (EFLAGS.IF) system flag (SDM Vol. 3A; section 2.3). If the instruction following the MOV to SS or POP to SS instruction is an instruction like SYSCALL, SYSENTER, INT 3, etc. that transfers control to the operating system at CPL < 3, the debug exception is delivered after the transfer to CPL < 3 is complete. OS kernels may not expect this order of events and may therefore experience unexpected behavior when it occurs.

Is CVE-2018-8897 actively exploited?

Active exploitation of CVE-2018-8897 has not been confirmed. Its EPSS score was 18.5% on 2026-11-02, the estimated probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2018-8897?

CVE-2018-8897 has a CVSS v3 base score of 7.8 (HIGH severity), with vector string CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

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