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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2021-47237 json

net: hamradio: fix memory leak in mkiss_close

published 2024-05-21 2 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-33885

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 13%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

net: hamradio: fix memory leak in mkiss_close

My local syzbot instance hit memory leak in mkiss_open()[1]. The problem was in missing free_netdev() in mkiss_close().

In mkiss_open() netdevice is allocated and then registered, but in mkiss_close() netdevice was only unregistered, but not freed.

Fail log:

BUG: memory leak unreferenced object 0xffff8880281ba000 (size 4096): comm "syz-executor.1", pid 11443, jiffies 4295046091 (age 17.660s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 61 78 30 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ax0............. 00 27 fa 2a 80 88 ff ff 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .'.*............ backtrace: [<ffffffff81a27201>] kvmalloc_node+0x61/0xf0 [<ffffffff8706e7e8>] alloc_netdev_mqs+0x98/0xe80 [<ffffffff84e64192>] mkiss_open+0xb2/0x6f0 [1] [<ffffffff842355db>] tty_ldisc_open+0x9b/0x110 [<ffffffff84236488>] tty_set_ldisc+0x2e8/0x670 [<ffffffff8421f7f3>] tty_ioctl+0xda3/0x1440 [<ffffffff81c9f273>] __x64_sys_ioctl+0x193/0x200 [<ffffffff8911263a>] do_syscall_64+0x3a/0xb0 [<ffffffff89200068>] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae

BUG: memory leak unreferenced object 0xffff8880141a9a00 (size 96): comm "syz-executor.1", pid 11443, jiffies 4295046091 (age 17.660s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): e8 a2 1b 28 80 88 ff ff e8 a2 1b 28 80 88 ff ff ...(.......(.... 98 92 9c aa b0 40 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .....@.......... backtrace: [<ffffffff8709f68b>] __hw_addr_create_ex+0x5b/0x310 [<ffffffff8709fb38>] __hw_addr_add_ex+0x1f8/0x2b0 [<ffffffff870a0c7b>] dev_addr_init+0x10b/0x1f0 [<ffffffff8706e88b>] alloc_netdev_mqs+0x13b/0xe80 [<ffffffff84e64192>] mkiss_open+0xb2/0x6f0 [1] [<ffffffff842355db>] tty_ldisc_open+0x9b/0x110 [<ffffffff84236488>] tty_set_ldisc+0x2e8/0x670 [<ffffffff8421f7f3>] tty_ioctl+0xda3/0x1440 [<ffffffff81c9f273>] __x64_sys_ioctl+0x193/0x200 [<ffffffff8911263a>] do_syscall_64+0x3a/0xb0 [<ffffffff89200068>] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae

BUG: memory leak unreferenced object 0xffff8880219bfc00 (size 512): comm "syz-executor.1", pid 11443, jiffies 4295046091 (age 17.660s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 00 a0 1b 28 80 88 ff ff 80 8f b1 8d ff ff ff ff ...(............ 80 8f b1 8d ff ff ff ff 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ backtrace: [<ffffffff81a27201>] kvmalloc_node+0x61/0xf0 [<ffffffff8706eec7>] alloc_netdev_mqs+0x777/0xe80 [<ffffffff84e64192>] mkiss_open+0xb2/0x6f0 [1] [<ffffffff842355db>] tty_ldisc_open+0x9b/0x110 [<ffffffff84236488>] tty_set_ldisc+0x2e8/0x670 [<ffffffff8421f7f3>] tty_ioctl+0xda3/0x1440 [<ffffffff81c9f273>] __x64_sys_ioctl+0x193/0x200 [<ffffffff8911263a>] do_syscall_64+0x3a/0xb0 [<ffffffff89200068>] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae

BUG: memory leak unreferenced object 0xffff888029b2b200 (size 256): comm "syz-executor.1", pid 11443, jiffies 4295046091 (age 17.660s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ backtrace: [<ffffffff81a27201>] kvmalloc_node+0x61/0xf0 [<ffffffff8706f062>] alloc_netdev_mqs+0x912/0xe80 [<ffffffff84e64192>] mkiss_open+0xb2/0x6f0 [1] [<ffffffff842355db>] tty_ldisc_open+0x9b/0x110 [<ffffffff84236488>] tty_set_ldisc+0x2e8/0x670 [<ffffffff8421f7f3>] tty_ioctl+0xda3/0x1440 [<ffffffff81c9f273>] __x64_sys_ioctl+0x193/0x200 [<ffffffff8911263a>] do_syscall_64+0x3a/0xb0 [<ffffffff89200068>] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 4.4.274, 4.9.274, 4.14.238, 4.19.196, 5.4.128, 5.10.46, 5.12.13, 5.13
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.10.46-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-47237

  • linux Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-156.163
  • linux Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-81.91
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-1111.118
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1055.58
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1051.55
  • linux-kvm Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 4.15.0-1099.101
  • linux-kvm Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1045.47
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1056.58

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2021-47237

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-64kb SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS, Enterprise Storage 7.1 5.3.18-150300.59.164.1
  • kernel-syms SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.164.1
  • kernel-source SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.164.1
  • kernel-default SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.2 +5 more 5.3.18-150300.59.164.1
  • kernel-preempt SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.164.1
  • kernel-obs-build SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.164.1
  • kernel-default-base SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.2 +3 more 5.3.18-150300.59.164.1.150300.18.96.1
  • kernel-syms SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5 4.12.14-122.219.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2024:2185-1SUSE-SU-2024:2184-1SUSE-SU-2024:2010-1SUSE-SU-2024:1983-1SUSE-SU-2024:1979-1

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-2021-47237 updated cvss 5.1

kernel: net: hamradio: fix memory leak in mkiss_close

  • 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 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more
    affected: no fix available
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 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
2 y ago

Exploit prediction

0.23% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 13% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 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-401 Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime
Technology feeds

References

Sources

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.