Linux users have been warned of a serious kernel vulnerability that could leave systems open to hackers.

Polish security specialist Isec Security Research has issued a warning of a memory management problem affecting Linux versions from 2.2 onwards.

It said that the "critical" vulnerability has been found in the Linux kernel memory management code in the mremap(2) system call, and is caused by a missing function return value check.

"Proper exploitation of this vulnerability leads to local privilege escalation, giving an attacker full super-user privileges. The vulnerability may also lead to a denial-of-service attack on the available system memory," the company warned.

The company said a malicious individual with access to a locally connected PC could take advantage of the "very easily exploitable" kernel problem. However, it added that there have been no reported cases of systems being attacked.

Patches for the vulnerability are available from the major Linux vendors including Suse Linux and Red Hat.

Red Hat bug fixes can be obtained at the web address below.