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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2024-26676 json

af_unix: Call kfree_skb() for dead unix_(sk)->oob_skb in GC.

published 2024-04-02 2 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2024-23938

cvss
5.5
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 13%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

af_unix: Call kfree_skb() for dead unix_(sk)->oob_skb in GC.

syzbot reported a warning [0] in __unix_gc() with a repro, which creates a socketpair and sends one socket's fd to itself using the peer.

socketpair(AF_UNIX, SOCK_STREAM, 0, [3, 4]) = 0 sendmsg(4, {msg_name=NULL, msg_namelen=0, msg_iov=[{iov_base="\360", iov_len=1}], msg_iovlen=1, msg_control=[{cmsg_len=20, cmsg_level=SOL_SOCKET, cmsg_type=SCM_RIGHTS, cmsg_data=[3]}], msg_controllen=24, msg_flags=0}, MSG_OOB|MSG_PROBE|MSG_DONTWAIT|MSG_ZEROCOPY) = 1

This forms a self-cyclic reference that GC should finally untangle but does not due to lack of MSG_OOB handling, resulting in memory leak.

Recently, commit 11498715f266 ("af_unix: Remove io_uring code for GC.") removed io_uring's dead code in GC and revealed the problem.

The code was executed at the final stage of GC and unconditionally moved all GC candidates from gc_candidates to gc_inflight_list. That papered over the reported problem by always making the following WARN_ON_ONCE(!list_empty(&gc_candidates)) false.

The problem has been there since commit 2aab4b969002 ("af_unix: fix struct pid leaks in OOB support") added full scm support for MSG_OOB while fixing another bug.

To fix this problem, we must call kfree_skb() for unix_sk(sk)->oob_skb if the socket still exists in gc_candidates after purging collected skb.

Then, we need to set NULL to oob_skb before calling kfree_skb() because it calls last fput() and triggers unix_release_sock(), where we call duplicate kfree_skb(u->oob_skb) if not NULL.

Note that the leaked socket remained being linked to a global list, so kmemleak also could not detect it. We need to check /proc/net/protocol to notice the unfreed socket.

[0]: WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 2863 at net/unix/garbage.c:345 __unix_gc+0xc74/0xe80 net/unix/garbage.c:345 Modules linked in: CPU: 0 PID: 2863 Comm: kworker/u4:11 Not tainted 6.8.0-rc1-syzkaller-00583-g1701940b1a02 #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 01/25/2024 Workqueue: events_unbound __unix_gc RIP: 0010:__unix_gc+0xc74/0xe80 net/unix/garbage.c:345 Code: 8b 5c 24 50 e9 86 f8 ff ff e8 f8 e4 22 f8 31 d2 48 c7 c6 30 6a 69 89 4c 89 ef e8 97 ef ff ff e9 80 f9 ff ff e8 dd e4 22 f8 90 <0f> 0b 90 e9 7b fd ff ff 48 89 df e8 5c e7 7c f8 e9 d3 f8 ff ff e8 RSP: 0018:ffffc9000b03fba0 EFLAGS: 00010293 RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: ffffc9000b03fc10 RCX: ffffffff816c493e RDX: ffff88802c02d940 RSI: ffffffff896982f3 RDI: ffffc9000b03fb30 RBP: ffffc9000b03fce0 R08: 0000000000000001 R09: fffff52001607f66 R10: 0000000000000003 R11: 0000000000000002 R12: dffffc0000000000 R13: ffffc9000b03fc10 R14: ffffc9000b03fc10 R15: 0000000000000001 FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff8880b9400000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 00005559c8677a60 CR3: 000000000d57a000 CR4: 00000000003506f0 DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 Call Trace: <TASK> process_one_work+0x889/0x15e0 kernel/workqueue.c:2633 process_scheduled_works kernel/workqueue.c:2706 [inline] worker_thread+0x8b9/0x12a0 kernel/workqueue.c:2787 kthread+0x2c6/0x3b0 kernel/kthread.c:388 ret_from_fork+0x45/0x80 arch/x86/kernel/process.c:147 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1b/0x30 arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:242 </TASK>

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.15.149, 6.1.78, 6.3, 6.6.17, 6.7.5, 6.8
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.82-1
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.7.7-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2024-26676

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-106.116
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1061.67
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1059.67
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1058.63
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1054.57
  • linux-kvm Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1058.63
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1063.72
  • linux-gkeop Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1044.51

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2024-26676

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-rt Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-9.1
  • kernel-source-rt Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-9.1
  • kernel-source Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-18.1
  • kernel-default Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-18.1
  • kernel-kvmsmall Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-18.1
  • kernel-default-base Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-17.1.1.51
  • kernel-rt Real Time Module 15 SP6, openSUSE Leap 15.6 6.4.0-150600.10.5.1
  • kernel-syms-rt Real Time Module 15 SP6, openSUSE Leap 15.6 6.4.0-150600.10.5.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:20028-1SUSE-SU-2025:20008-1SUSE-SU-2024:2973-1SUSE-SU-2024:2896-1SUSE-SU-2024:2571-1

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-2024-26676 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: af_unix: Call kfree_skb() for dead unix_(sk)->oob_skb in GC

  • 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
18 mo 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
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
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-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.