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Fencer Vulns
critical 9.8

CVE-2024-26953 in the critical feed json

net: esp: fix bad handling of pages from page_pool

published 2024-05-01 2 y ago modified 2026-10-30 9 d ago also EUVD-2024-24215

cvss
9.8
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 51%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

net: esp: fix bad handling of pages from page_pool

When the skb is reorganized during esp_output (!esp->inline), the pages coming from the original skb fragments are supposed to be released back to the system through put_page. But if the skb fragment pages are originating from a page_pool, calling put_page on them will trigger a page_pool leak which will eventually result in a crash.

This leak can be easily observed when using CONFIG_DEBUG_VM and doing ipsec + gre (non offloaded) forwarding:

BUG: Bad page state in process ksoftirqd/16 pfn:1451b6 page:00000000de2b8d32 refcount:0 mapcount:0 mapping:0000000000000000 index:0x1451b6000 pfn:0x1451b6 flags: 0x200000000000000(node=0|zone=2) page_type: 0xffffffff() raw: 0200000000000000 dead000000000040 ffff88810d23c000 0000000000000000 raw: 00000001451b6000 0000000000000001 00000000ffffffff 0000000000000000 page dumped because: page_pool leak Modules linked in: ip_gre gre mlx5_ib mlx5_core xt_conntrack xt_MASQUERADE nf_conntrack_netlink nfnetlink iptable_nat nf_nat xt_addrtype br_netfilter rpcrdma rdma_ucm ib_iser libiscsi scsi_transport_iscsi ib_umad rdma_cm ib_ipoib iw_cm ib_cm ib_uverbs ib_core overlay zram zsmalloc fuse [last unloaded: mlx5_core] CPU: 16 PID: 96 Comm: ksoftirqd/16 Not tainted 6.8.0-rc4+ #22 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS rel-1.13.0-0-gf21b5a4aeb02-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 Call Trace: <TASK> dump_stack_lvl+0x36/0x50 bad_page+0x70/0xf0 free_unref_page_prepare+0x27a/0x460 free_unref_page+0x38/0x120 esp_ssg_unref.isra.0+0x15f/0x200 esp_output_tail+0x66d/0x780 esp_xmit+0x2c5/0x360 validate_xmit_xfrm+0x313/0x370 ? validate_xmit_skb+0x1d/0x330 validate_xmit_skb_list+0x4c/0x70 sch_direct_xmit+0x23e/0x350 __dev_queue_xmit+0x337/0xba0 ? nf_hook_slow+0x3f/0xd0 ip_finish_output2+0x25e/0x580 iptunnel_xmit+0x19b/0x240 ip_tunnel_xmit+0x5fb/0xb60 ipgre_xmit+0x14d/0x280 [ip_gre] dev_hard_start_xmit+0xc3/0x1c0 __dev_queue_xmit+0x208/0xba0 ? nf_hook_slow+0x3f/0xd0 ip_finish_output2+0x1ca/0x580 ip_sublist_rcv_finish+0x32/0x40 ip_sublist_rcv+0x1b2/0x1f0 ? ip_rcv_finish_core.constprop.0+0x460/0x460 ip_list_rcv+0x103/0x130 __netif_receive_skb_list_core+0x181/0x1e0 netif_receive_skb_list_internal+0x1b3/0x2c0 napi_gro_receive+0xc8/0x200 gro_cell_poll+0x52/0x90 __napi_poll+0x25/0x1a0 net_rx_action+0x28e/0x300 __do_softirq+0xc3/0x276 ? sort_range+0x20/0x20 run_ksoftirqd+0x1e/0x30 smpboot_thread_fn+0xa6/0x130 kthread+0xcd/0x100 ? kthread_complete_and_exit+0x20/0x20 ret_from_fork+0x31/0x50 ? kthread_complete_and_exit+0x20/0x20 ret_from_fork_asm+0x11/0x20 </TASK>

The suggested fix is to introduce a new wrapper (skb_page_unref) that covers page refcounting for page_pool pages as well.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.1.191, 6.6.24, 6.7.12, 6.8.3, 6.9
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.7.12-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2024-26953

  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-35.35
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1009.9
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1008.9
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1004.7
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1006.6
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1008.8
  • linux-raspi Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1005.5
  • linux-riscv Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-35.35.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2024-26953

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 RHEL 9 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5
  • rv RHEL 9 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5
  • perf RHEL 9 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5
  • rtla RHEL 9 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5
  • bpftool RHEL 9 7.4.0-503.11.1.el9_5
  • libperf RHEL 9 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5
  • kernel-rt RHEL 9 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5
  • kernel-64k RHEL 9 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5

red hat advisories RHSA-2024:9315

  • kernel-source Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-24.1
  • kernel-default Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-24.1
  • kernel-kvmsmall Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-24.1
  • kernel-default-base Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-24.1.21.4
  • kernel-livepatch-MICRO-6-0_Update_4 Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 1-1.2
  • kernel-rt Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-22.1
  • kernel-source-rt Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-22.1
  • kernel-livepatch-MICRO-6-0-RT_Update_4 Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 1-1.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:20164-1SUSE-SU-2025:20247-1SUSE-SU-2025:20163-1SUSE-SU-2025:20246-1SUSE-SU-2024:4387-1SUSE-SU-2024:4376-1

  • hyperv-daemons CBL-Mariner 2.0 5.15.158.2-1

azure linux advisories AZL-40509

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

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-2024-26953 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: net: esp: fix bad handling of pages from page_pool

  • 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 kernel-rt, kernel-rt-kvm, kernel-rt-core, kernel-rt-modules, kernel-rt-debug-kvm, kernel-rt-debug-core, +12 more
    affected: no fix available
  • Red Hat CodeReady Linux Builder (v. 9) libperf 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-debuginfo-common-s390x 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-debuginfo-common-aarch64 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-debuginfo-common-ppc64le 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5 Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 9) rv 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, perf 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, rtla 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-devel-matched 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-64k-devel-matched 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-debug-devel-matched 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, +6 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux BaseOS (v. 9) bpftool 7.4.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-64k 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-core 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-tools 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, python3-perf 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux Real Time (v. 9) kernel-rt 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-core 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-modules 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-debug-core 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-modules-core 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-debug-modules 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, +4 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux Real Time for NFV (v. 9) kernel-rt 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-kvm 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-core 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-modules 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-debug-kvm 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, kernel-rt-debug-core 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5, +6 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2024:9315
  • Red Hat CodeReady Linux Builder (v. 9) kernel-cross-headers 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 9) kernel-headers 5.14.0-503.11.1.el9_5
    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

0.66% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 51% 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 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

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.