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Fencer Vulns
critical 9.8

CVE-2021-47496 in the critical feed json

net/tls: Fix flipped sign in tls_err_abort() calls

published 2024-05-22 2 y ago modified 2026-08-05 3 mo ago also EUVD-2021-34500

cvss
9.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.5%
EPSS 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 41%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

net/tls: Fix flipped sign in tls_err_abort() calls

sk->sk_err appears to expect a positive value, a convention that ktls doesn't always follow and that leads to memory corruption in other code. For instance,

[kworker] tls_encrypt_done(..., err=<negative error from crypto request>) tls_err_abort(.., err) sk->sk_err = err;

[task] splice_from_pipe_feed ... tls_sw_do_sendpage if (sk->sk_err) { ret = -sk->sk_err; // ret is positive

splice_from_pipe_feed (continued) ret = actor(...) // ret is still positive and interpreted as bytes // written, resulting in underflow of buf->len and // sd->len, leading to huge buf->offset and bogus // addresses computed in later calls to actor()

Fix all tls_err_abort() callers to pass a negative error code consistently and centralize the error-prone sign flip there, throwing in a warning to catch future misuse and uninlining the function so it really does only warn once.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.4.157, 5.10.77, 5.14.16, 5.15
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.15.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-47496

  • linux Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-92.103
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1061.64
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1059.63
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1010.11
  • linux-kvm Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1051.53
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1065.68
  • linux-gkeop Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1029.30
  • linux-raspi Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1048.53

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2021-47496

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

  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.68.1
  • kernel-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.68.1
  • kernel-syms SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.68.1
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.68.1
  • kernel-source SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP5, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.68.1
  • kernel-default SLE Workstation Extension 15 SP5, SLE Module for Legacy 15 SP5, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5 +4 more 5.14.21-150500.55.68.1
  • kernel-kvmsmall openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.68.1
  • kernel-zfcpdump SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP5, openSUSE Leap 15.5 5.14.21-150500.55.68.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:0943-1SUSE-SU-2025:0908-1SUSE-SU-2025:0898-1SUSE-SU-2025:0892-1SUSE-SU-2024:2190-1SUSE-SU-2024:2189-1

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-2021-47496 updated cvss 5.6

kernel: net/tls: Fix flipped sign in tls_err_abort() calls

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more
    affected: no fix available
  • 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 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

0.48% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 41% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

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.