Skip to content
Fencer Vulns
high 8.2

CVE-2024-38616 json

wifi: carl9170: re-fix fortified-memset warning

published 2024-06-19 2 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2024-37479

cvss
8.2
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:

wifi: carl9170: re-fix fortified-memset warning

The carl9170_tx_release() function sometimes triggers a fortified-memset warning in my randconfig builds:

In file included from include/linux/string.h:254, from drivers/net/wireless/ath/carl9170/tx.c:40: In function 'fortify_memset_chk', inlined from 'carl9170_tx_release' at drivers/net/wireless/ath/carl9170/tx.c:283:2, inlined from 'kref_put' at include/linux/kref.h:65:3, inlined from 'carl9170_tx_put_skb' at drivers/net/wireless/ath/carl9170/tx.c:342:9: include/linux/fortify-string.h:493:25: error: call to '__write_overflow_field' declared with attribute warning: detected write beyond size of field (1st parameter); maybe use struct_group()? [-Werror=attribute-warning] 493 | __write_overflow_field(p_size_field, size);

Kees previously tried to avoid this by using memset_after(), but it seems this does not fully address the problem. I noticed that the memset_after() here is done on a different part of the union (status) than the original cast was from (rate_driver_data), which may confuse the compiler.

Unfortunately, the memset_after() trick does not work on driver_rates[] because that is part of an anonymous struct, and I could not get struct_group() to do this either. Using two separate memset() calls on the two members does address the warning though.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.1.93, 6.6.33, 6.8.12, 6.9.3, 6.10
  • linux linux_kernel 0c38c9c460bb, 042a39bb8e08, 066afafc10c9, 13857683126e, 875864670982
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.94-1
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.8.12-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2024-38616

  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-40.40
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1013.14
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1012.13
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1008.11
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1010.10
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1012.14
  • linux-raspi Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1009.10
  • linux-riscv Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-40.40.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2024-38616

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-2024:2939-1SUSE-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-2024-38616 updated cvss 4.4

kernel: wifi: carl9170: re-fix fortified-memset warning

  • 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 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
yes
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2 y ago

Exploit prediction

0.65% 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
CISA ADP 3.1 8.2 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H
CNA 3.1 8.2 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux
  • linux linux_kernel

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-400 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
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.