high 7.8

CVE-2021-46933 json

usb: gadget: f_fs: Clear ffs_eventfd in ffs_data_clear.

published 2024-02-27 2 y ago modified 2026-08-05 3 mo ago also EUVD-2021-33581

cvss: 7.8; version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.2%; EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 15%
public exploits: 0; none known

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

ffs_data_clear is indirectly called from both ffs_fs_kill_sb and ffs_ep0_release, so it ends up being called twice when userland closes ep0 and then unmounts f_fs. If userland provided an eventfd along with function's USB descriptors, it ends up calling eventfd_ctx_put as many times, causing a refcount underflow. NULL-ify ffs_eventfd to prevent these extraneous eventfd_ctx_put calls.

Also, set epfiles to NULL right after de-allocating it, for readability.

For completeness, ffs_data_clear actually ends up being called thrice, the last call being before the whole ffs structure gets freed, so when this specific sequence happens there is a second underflow happening (but not being reported):

/sys/kernel/debug/tracing# modprobe usb_f_fs /sys/kernel/debug/tracing# echo ffs_data_clear > set_ftrace_filter /sys/kernel/debug/tracing# echo function > current_tracer /sys/kernel/debug/tracing# echo 1 > tracing_on (setup gadget, run and kill function userland process, teardown gadget) /sys/kernel/debug/tracing# echo 0 > tracing_on /sys/kernel/debug/tracing# cat trace smartcard-openp-436 [000] ..... 1946.208786: ffs_data_clear <-ffs_data_closed smartcard-openp-431 [000] ..... 1946.279147: ffs_data_clear <-ffs_data_closed smartcard-openp-431 [000] .n... 1946.905512: ffs_data_clear <-ffs_data_put

Warning output corresponding to above trace: [ 1946.284139] WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 431 at lib/refcount.c:28 refcount_warn_saturate+0x110/0x15c [ 1946.293094] refcount_t: underflow; use-after-free. [ 1946.298164] Modules linked in: usb_f_ncm(E) u_ether(E) usb_f_fs(E) hci_uart(E) btqca(E) btrtl(E) btbcm(E) btintel(E) bluetooth(E) nls_ascii(E) nls_cp437(E) vfat(E) fat(E) bcm2835_v4l2(CE) bcm2835_mmal_vchiq(CE) videobuf2_vmalloc(E) videobuf2_memops(E) sha512_generic(E) videobuf2_v4l2(E) sha512_arm(E) videobuf2_common(E) videodev(E) cpufreq_dt(E) snd_bcm2835(CE) brcmfmac(E) mc(E) vc4(E) ctr(E) brcmutil(E) snd_soc_core(E) snd_pcm_dmaengine(E) drbg(E) snd_pcm(E) snd_timer(E) snd(E) soundcore(E) drm_kms_helper(E) cec(E) ansi_cprng(E) rc_core(E) syscopyarea(E) raspberrypi_cpufreq(E) sysfillrect(E) sysimgblt(E) cfg80211(E) max17040_battery(OE) raspberrypi_hwmon(E) fb_sys_fops(E) regmap_i2c(E) ecdh_generic(E) rfkill(E) ecc(E) bcm2835_rng(E) rng_core(E) vchiq(CE) leds_gpio(E) libcomposite(E) fuse(E) configfs(E) ip_tables(E) x_tables(E) autofs4(E) ext4(E) crc16(E) mbcache(E) jbd2(E) crc32c_generic(E) sdhci_iproc(E) sdhci_pltfm(E) sdhci(E) [ 1946.399633] CPU: 0 PID: 431 Comm: smartcard-openp Tainted: G C OE 5.15.0-1-rpi #1 Debian 5.15.3-1 [ 1946.417950] Hardware name: BCM2835 [ 1946.425442] Backtrace: [ 1946.432048] [<c08d60a0>] (dump_backtrace) from [<c08d62ec>] (show_stack+0x20/0x24) [ 1946.448226] r7:00000009 r6:0000001c r5:c04a948c r4:c0a64e2c [ 1946.458412] [<c08d62cc>] (show_stack) from [<c08d9ae0>] (dump_stack+0x28/0x30) [ 1946.470380] [<c08d9ab8>] (dump_stack) from [<c0123500>] (__warn+0xe8/0x154) [ 1946.482067] r5:c04a948c r4:c0a71dc8 [ 1946.490184] [<c0123418>] (__warn) from [<c08d6948>] (warn_slowpath_fmt+0xa0/0xe4) [ 1946.506758] r7:00000009 r6:0000001c r5:c0a71dc8 r4:c0a71e04 [ 1946.517070] [<c08d68ac>] (warn_slowpath_fmt) from [<c04a948c>] (refcount_warn_saturate+0x110/0x15c) [ 1946.535309] r8:c0100224 r7:c0dfcb84 r6:ffffffff r5:c3b84c00 r4:c24a17c0 [ 1946.546708] [<c04a937c>] (refcount_warn_saturate) from [<c0380134>] (eventfd_ctx_put+0x48/0x74) [ 1946.564476] [<c03800ec>] (eventfd_ctx_put) from [<bf5464e8>] (ffs_data_clear+0xd0/0x118 [usb_f_fs]) [ 1946.582664] r5:c3b84c00 r4:c2695b00 [ 1946.590668] [<bf546418>] (ffs_data_clear [usb_f_fs]) from [<bf547cc0>] (ffs_data_closed+0x9c/0x150 [usb_f_fs]) [ 1946.609608] r5:bf54d014 r4:c2695b00 [ 1946.617522] [<bf547c24>] (ffs_data_closed [usb_f_fs]) from [<bf547da0>] (ffs_fs_kill_sb+0x2c/0x30 [usb_f_fs]) [ 1946.636217] r7:c0dfcb ---truncated---

Patch / fix

fixed in 1 distros 3 links 8

Linux Linux 4.4.298, 4.9.296, 4.14.261, 4.19.224, 5.4.170, 5.10.90, 5.15.13, 5.16

debian ubuntu suse

linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.15.15-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-46933

linux Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-173.182
linux Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-105.119
linux-aws Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-1124.133
linux-aws Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1069.73
linux-gcp Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1068.72
linux-ibm Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1018.20
linux-kvm Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-1110.113
linux-kvm Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1059.62

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2021-46933

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

kernel-syms SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5 4.12.14-122.219.1
kernel-source SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5 4.12.14-122.219.1
kernel-default SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5, SLE Workstation Extension 12 SP5 +2 more 4.12.14-122.219.1
kernel-obs-build SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP5 4.12.14-122.219.1
kernel-rt SLE Real Time 12 SP5 4.12.14-10.188.1
kernel-syms-rt SLE Real Time 12 SP5 4.12.14-10.188.1
kernel-rt_debug SLE Real Time 12 SP5 4.12.14-10.188.1
kernel-source-rt SLE Real Time 12 SP5 4.12.14-10.188.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2024:2184-1 SUSE-SU-2024:1983-1 SUSE-SU-2024:1979-1 SUSE-SU-2024:1490-1 SUSE-SU-2024:1489-1 SUSE-SU-2024:1480-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2021-46933 updated 2026-11-07 cvss 4.4

kernel: usb: gadget: f_fs: Clear ffs_eventfd in ffs_data_clear.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more
affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more
not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation: none
Automatable: no
Technical impact: partial
Assessed: 18 mo ago (2025-04-22)

Exploit prediction

0.24% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 15% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CNA	3.1	7.8	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CISA ADP	3.1	5.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD	3.1	5.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA	3.1	5.5	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness

CWE-476 NULL Pointer Dereference
CWE-416 Use After Free

Technology feeds

Linux kernel rss critical rss

References

Sources

CVE List CVE-2021-46933
NVD CVE-2021-46933

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

Summary