CVE-2014-8559: The d_walk function in fs/dcache.c in the Linux kernel through 3.17.2 does not properly maintain the semantics of rename

CVE-2014-8559 is a bug in the Linux kernel (version 3.17.2 and earlier) where the d_walk function fails to properly manage rename_lock (a mechanism that prevents conflicts when files are renamed). A local user can exploit this to cause a denial of service (DoS), which means crashing or freezing the system so it becomes unresponsive.