CVEvulnerability
CVE-2024-40910
5.5 MEDIUM
Official page ↗
- Status
- Modified
- Published
- 2024-07-12
- Last modified
- 2026-08-04
- Assigner
- 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
- CVSS 3.1 (416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67)
- 8.8 HIGH — CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CVSS 3.1 ([email protected])
- 5.5 MEDIUM — CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
ax25: Fix refcount imbalance on inbound connections
When releasing a socket in ax25_release(), we call netdev_put() to
decrease the refcount on the associated ax.25 device. However, the
execution path for accepting an incoming connection never calls
netdev_hold(). This imbalance leads to refcount errors, and ultimately
to kernel crashes.
A typical call trace for the above situation will start with one of the
following errors:
refcount_t: decrement hit 0; leaking memory.
refcount_t: underflow; use-after-free.
And will then have a trace like:
Call Trace:
<TASK>
? show_regs+0x64/0x70
? __warn+0x83/0x120
? refcount_warn_saturate+0xb2/0x100
? report_bug+0x158/0x190
? prb_read_valid+0x20/0x30
? handle_bug+0x3e/0x70
? exc_invalid_op+0x1c/0x70
? asm_exc_invalid_op+0x1f/0x30
? refcount_warn_saturate+0xb2/0x100
? refcount_warn_saturate+0xb2/0x100
ax25_release+0x2ad/0x360
__sock_release+0x35/0xa0
sock_close+0x19/0x20
[...]
On reboot (or any attempt to remove the interface), the kernel gets
stuck in an infinite loop:
unregister_netdevice: waiting for ax0 to become free. Usage count = 0
This patch corrects these issues by ensuring that we call netdev_hold()
and ax25_dev_hold() for new connections in ax25_accept(). This makes the
logic leading to ax25_accept() match the logic for ax25_bind(): in both
cases we increment the refcount, which is ultimately decremented in
ax25_release().
Affected configurations
• linux linux kernel (>= 5.18 < 6.1.95)
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.2 < 6.6.35)
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.7 < 6.9.6)
• linux linux kernel 6.10
References
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3c34fb0bd4a4237592c5ecb5b2e2531900c55774 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/52100fd74ad07b53a4666feafff1cd11436362d3 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a723a6c8d4831cc8e2c7b0c9f3f0c010d4671964 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f4df9d6c8d4e4c818252b0419c2165d66eabd4eb Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3c34fb0bd4a4237592c5ecb5b2e2531900c55774 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/52100fd74ad07b53a4666feafff1cd11436362d3 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a723a6c8d4831cc8e2c7b0c9f3f0c010d4671964 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f4df9d6c8d4e4c818252b0419c2165d66eabd4eb Patch
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/01/msg00001.html lists.debian.org