The compat_alloc_user_space functions in include/asm/compat.h files in the Linux kernel before 2.6.36-rc4-git2 on 64-bit platforms do not properly allocate the userspace memory required for the 32-bit compatibility layer, which allows local users to gain privileges by leveraging the ability of the compat_mc_getsockopt function (aka the MCAST_MSFILTER getsockopt support) to control a certain length value, related to a "stack pointer underflow" issue, as exploited in the wild in September 2010.
The product performs operations on a memory buffer, but it reads from or writes to a memory location outside the buffer's intended boundary. This may result in read or write operations on unexpected memory locations that could be linked to other variables, data structures, or internal program data.