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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2024-40947 json

ima: Avoid blocking in RCU read-side critical section

published 2024-07-12 2 y ago modified 2026-08-05 3 mo ago also EUVD-2024-38834

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.3%
EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 17%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

ima: Avoid blocking in RCU read-side critical section

A panic happens in ima_match_policy:

BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at 0000000000000010 PGD 42f873067 P4D 0 Oops: 0000 [#1] SMP NOPTI CPU: 5 PID: 1286325 Comm: kubeletmonit.sh Kdump: loaded Tainted: P Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 0.0.0 02/06/2015 RIP: 0010:ima_match_policy+0x84/0x450 Code: 49 89 fc 41 89 cf 31 ed 89 44 24 14 eb 1c 44 39 7b 18 74 26 41 83 ff 05 74 20 48 8b 1b 48 3b 1d f2 b9 f4 00 0f 84 9c 01 00 00 <44> 85 73 10 74 ea 44 8b 6b 14 41 f6 c5 01 75 d4 41 f6 c5 02 74 0f RSP: 0018:ff71570009e07a80 EFLAGS: 00010207 RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: 0000000000000200 RDX: ffffffffad8dc7c0 RSI: 0000000024924925 RDI: ff3e27850dea2000 RBP: 0000000000000000 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: ffffffffabfce739 R10: ff3e27810cc42400 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: ff3e2781825ef970 R13: 00000000ff3e2785 R14: 000000000000000c R15: 0000000000000001 FS: 00007f5195b51740(0000) GS:ff3e278b12d40000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 0000000000000010 CR3: 0000000626d24002 CR4: 0000000000361ee0 DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 Call Trace: ima_get_action+0x22/0x30 process_measurement+0xb0/0x830 ? page_add_file_rmap+0x15/0x170 ? alloc_set_pte+0x269/0x4c0 ? prep_new_page+0x81/0x140 ? simple_xattr_get+0x75/0xa0 ? selinux_file_open+0x9d/0xf0 ima_file_check+0x64/0x90 path_openat+0x571/0x1720 do_filp_open+0x9b/0x110 ? page_counter_try_charge+0x57/0xc0 ? files_cgroup_alloc_fd+0x38/0x60 ? __alloc_fd+0xd4/0x250 ? do_sys_open+0x1bd/0x250 do_sys_open+0x1bd/0x250 do_syscall_64+0x5d/0x1d0 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x65/0xca

Commit c7423dbdbc9e ("ima: Handle -ESTALE returned by ima_filter_rule_match()") introduced call to ima_lsm_copy_rule within a RCU read-side critical section which contains kmalloc with GFP_KERNEL. This implies a possible sleep and violates limitations of RCU read-side critical sections on non-PREEMPT systems.

Sleeping within RCU read-side critical section might cause synchronize_rcu() returning early and break RCU protection, allowing a UAF to happen.

The root cause of this issue could be described as follows: | Thread A | Thread B | | |ima_match_policy | | | rcu_read_lock | |ima_lsm_update_rule | | | synchronize_rcu | | | | kmalloc(GFP_KERNEL)| | | sleep | ==> synchronize_rcu returns early | kfree(entry) | | | | entry = entry->next| ==> UAF happens and entry now becomes NULL (or could be anything). | | entry->action | ==> Accessing entry might cause panic.

To fix this issue, we are converting all kmalloc that is called within RCU read-side critical section to use GFP_ATOMIC.

[PM: fixed missing comment, long lines, !CONFIG_IMA_LSM_RULES case]

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.5, 5.10.222, 5.15.163, 6.1, 6.1.98, 6.6.39, 6.9.7, 6.10
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.99-1
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.9.7-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2024-40947

  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-44.44
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1015.16
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1014.16
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1010.13
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1012.12
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1014.16
  • linux-raspi Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1011.12
  • linux-riscv Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-44.44.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2024-40947

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-2024:2802-1

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-2024-40947 updated cvss 4.1

kernel: ima: Avoid blocking in RCU read-side critical section

  • 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 ICSA-25-226-07 updated

Siemens Third-Party Components in SINEC OS

  • Siemens RUGGEDCOM RST2428P (6GK6242-6PA00) Siemens SCALANCE XC-300/XR-300/XC-400/XR-500WG/XR-500 family Siemens SCALANCE XCM-/XRM-/XCH-/XRH-300 family
    not affected

Facts from CISA's republication of the vendor's own advisory (CSAF); the linked advisory is the authoritative source. CISA notification · csaf

cisa ICSA-25-226-15 updated cvss 5.5

Siemens SINEC OS

  • Siemens RUGGEDCOM RST2428P (6GK6242-6PA00) < 3.1 Siemens SCALANCE XCM-/XRM-/XCH-/XRH-300 family < 3.1
    affected: fixed in V3.1 support.industry.siemens.com
  • Siemens SCALANCE XC-300/XR-300/XC-400/XR-500WG/XR-500 family
    not affected

Facts from CISA's republication of the vendor's own advisory (CSAF); the linked advisory is the authoritative source. CISA notification · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2 y ago

Exploit prediction

0.26% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 17% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/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

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.