Hole in the Linux kernel allows root access Nov 4, 2009, 16 :03 UTC (0 Talkback[s]) (2883 reads)
"The hole is reportedly contained in pipe.c and can occur in certain circumstances when using the pipe_read_open(), pipe_write_open() or pipe_rdwr_open() functions while releasing a mutex (mutual exclusion) too early – which constitutes a classic race condition. So far, the flaw has only been fixed in release candidate 6 of the forthcoming version 2.6.32.
"However, like previous null pointer dereference issues in the Linux kernel, the vulnerability can only be exploited if the kernel's mmap_min_addr system variable is set to 0."