SystemTap is an instrumentation infrastructure for systems running version 2.6 of the Linux kernel. SystemTap scripts can collect system operations data, greatly simplifying information gathering. Collected data can then assist in performance measuring, functional testing, and performance and function problem diagnosis. A race condition was discovered in SystemTap that could allow users in the stapusr group to elevate privileges to that of members of the stapdev group , bypassing directory confinement restrictions and allowing them to insert arbitrary SystemTap kernel modules. Note: This issue was only exploitable if another SystemTap kernel module was placed in the "systemtap/" module directory for the currently running kernel. Red Hat would like to thank Erik Sjolund for reporting this issue. SystemTap users should upgrade to these updated packages, which contain a backported patch to correct this issue.