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A comment on Local privilege escalation vulnerabilities in Linux. Parent comment

Re:Local privilege escalation vulnerabilities in Linux by NooneAtAll5 on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @08:02PM (#50373665)
> How did we get to the point where there are a thousand privilege escalation exploits in the kernel?

it's been rule of thumb basically forever that there is 1 bug per ~10KLOC for any project

linux kernel is millions of lines, so thousands of bugs being hidden there is about on point

(tho obviously far smaller serious escalation ones, obviously, but you're exaggerating as well)

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Re:Local privilege escalation vulnerabilities in Linux by jiggawatts on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @08:59PM (#50374128)
> 1 bug per ~10KLOC for any project

1 bug per 10 lines -- not kilolines -- is much closer to the actual "bug rate".

You may be thinking "1 serious security vulnerability bug", but in my experience that too is much closer to 1 per 100 lines to 1 per 1,000 lines, depending on the type of application.

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