Details: The (1) pipe_read and (2) pipe_write implementations in fs/pipe.c in the Linux kernel before 3.16 do not properly consider the side effects of failed __copy_to_user_inatomic and __copy_from_user_inatomic calls, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (system crash) or possibly gain privileges via a crafted application, aka an 'I/O vector array overrun.' [CVE-2015-1805]
This is a known issue in the upstream Linux kernel that was fixed in April 2014 but wasn’t called out as a security fix and assigned CVE-2015-1805 until February 2, 2015. On February 19, 2016, C0RE Team notified Google that the issue could be exploited on Android and a patch was developed to be included in an upcoming regularly scheduled monthly update. On March 15, 2016 Google received a report from Zimperium that this vulnerability had been abused on a Nexus 5 device. Google has confirmed the existence of a publicly available rooting application that abuses this vulnerability on Nexus 5 and Nexus 6 to provide the device user with root privileges. [android-advisory-2016-03-18]
