This is a successful local privilege escalation, so local administrator privs were not needed. In default configuration of all distros, apparently.
> If you want to block module loads, you’re one sysctl flag away.
The modules aren't really the point, it's that unnecessary features (to 99% of us?) were accessible by default without privs.
It's not any different from putting an always-running network service behind socket activation instead. The security boundary/risk is nearly identical between the two.
You responded contrasting a network service with an administrator-loadable module.
This is neither of those. It's an LPE, not a remote exploit. It doesn't require an administrator (root) to load anything. In context of this vuln, it's exactly analogous to socket activation. The scope of an LPE vuln is local; yes. What does that have to do with the rest of your comments?
I originally replied to a comment saying "This feels like the practice of Linux distros back in 1999 when they'd ship default installs with dozens of network services exposed to the internet". It is not like that.