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Fencer Vulns
medium 6.3

CVE-2021-47267 json

usb: fix various gadget panics on 10gbps cabling

published 2024-05-21 2 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-34272

cvss
6.3
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.7%
EPSS 0.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 52%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

usb: fix various gadget panics on 10gbps cabling

usb_assign_descriptors() is called with 5 parameters, the last 4 of which are the usb_descriptor_header for: full-speed (USB1.1 - 12Mbps [including USB1.0 low-speed @ 1.5Mbps), high-speed (USB2.0 - 480Mbps), super-speed (USB3.0 - 5Gbps), super-speed-plus (USB3.1 - 10Gbps).

The differences between full/high/super-speed descriptors are usually substantial (due to changes in the maximum usb block size from 64 to 512 to 1024 bytes and other differences in the specs), while the difference between 5 and 10Gbps descriptors may be as little as nothing (in many cases the same tuning is simply good enough).

However if a gadget driver calls usb_assign_descriptors() with a NULL descriptor for super-speed-plus and is then used on a max 10gbps configuration, the kernel will crash with a null pointer dereference, when a 10gbps capable device port + cable + host port combination shows up. (This wouldn't happen if the gadget max-speed was set to 5gbps, but it of course defaults to the maximum, and there's no real reason to artificially limit it)

The fix is to simply use the 5gbps descriptor as the 10gbps descriptor, if a 10gbps descriptor wasn't provided.

Obviously this won't fix the problem if the 5gbps descriptor is also NULL, but such cases can't be so trivially solved (and any such gadgets are unlikely to be used with USB3 ports any way).

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 4.9.273, 4.14.237, 4.19.195, 5.4.126, 5.10.44, 5.12.11, 5.13
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.10.46-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-47267

  • 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-2021-47267

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 4.12.14-122.222.1
  • kernel-source SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5 4.12.14-122.222.1
  • kernel-default SLES for SAP 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5, SLE Workstation Extension 12 SP5 +2 more 4.12.14-122.222.1
  • kernel-obs-build SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP5 4.12.14-122.222.1
  • kernel-rt SLE Real Time 12 SP5 4.12.14-10.191.1
  • kernel-syms-rt SLE Real Time 12 SP5 4.12.14-10.191.1
  • kernel-rt_debug SLE Real Time 12 SP5 4.12.14-10.191.1
  • kernel-source-rt SLE Real Time 12 SP5 4.12.14-10.191.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2024:2561-1SUSE-SU-2024:2381-1SUSE-SU-2024:2360-1SUSE-SU-2024:2185-1SUSE-SU-2024:2183-1SUSE-SU-2024:2010-1

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-2021-47267 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: usb: fix various gadget panics on 10gbps cabling

  • 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 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
2 y ago

Exploit prediction

0.68% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 52% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CISA ADP 3.1 6.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L
CNA 3.1 6.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness
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.