NULL Pointer Dereference Affecting kernel-64k-debug-devel package, versions <0:5.14.0-503.19.1.el9_5


Severity

Recommended
0.0
medium
0
10

Based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux security rating.

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.04% (6th percentile)

Do your applications use this vulnerable package?

In a few clicks we can analyze your entire application and see what components are vulnerable in your application, and suggest you quick fixes.

Test your applications

Snyk Learn

Learn about NULL Pointer Dereference vulnerabilities in an interactive lesson.

Start learning
  • Snyk IDSNYK-RHEL9-KERNEL64KDEBUGDEVEL-8426709
  • published27 Nov 2024
  • disclosed9 Nov 2024

Introduced: 9 Nov 2024

CVE-2024-50223  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-476  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade RHEL:9 kernel-64k-debug-devel to version 0:5.14.0-503.19.1.el9_5 or higher.
This issue was patched in RHSA-2024:11486.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream kernel-64k-debug-devel package and not the kernel-64k-debug-devel package as distributed by RHEL. See How to fix? for RHEL:9 relevant fixed versions and status.

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

sched/numa: Fix the potential null pointer dereference in task_numa_work()

When running stress-ng-vm-segv test, we found a null pointer dereference error in task_numa_work(). Here is the backtrace:

[323676.066985] Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 0000000000000020 ...... [323676.067108] CPU: 35 PID: 2694524 Comm: stress-ng-vm-se ...... [323676.067113] pstate: 23401009 (nzCv daif +PAN -UAO +TCO +DIT +SSBS BTYPE=--) [323676.067115] pc : vma_migratable+0x1c/0xd0 [323676.067122] lr : task_numa_work+0x1ec/0x4e0 [323676.067127] sp : ffff8000ada73d20 [323676.067128] x29: ffff8000ada73d20 x28: 0000000000000000 x27: 000000003e89f010 [323676.067130] x26: 0000000000080000 x25: ffff800081b5c0d8 x24: ffff800081b27000 [323676.067133] x23: 0000000000010000 x22: 0000000104d18cc0 x21: ffff0009f7158000 [323676.067135] x20: 0000000000000000 x19: 0000000000000000 x18: ffff8000ada73db8 [323676.067138] x17: 0001400000000000 x16: ffff800080df40b0 x15: 0000000000000035 [323676.067140] x14: ffff8000ada73cc8 x13: 1fffe0017cc72001 x12: ffff8000ada73cc8 [323676.067142] x11: ffff80008001160c x10: ffff000be639000c x9 : ffff8000800f4ba4 [323676.067145] x8 : ffff000810375000 x7 : ffff8000ada73974 x6 : 0000000000000001 [323676.067147] x5 : 0068000b33e26707 x4 : 0000000000000001 x3 : ffff0009f7158000 [323676.067149] x2 : 0000000000000041 x1 : 0000000000004400 x0 : 0000000000000000 [323676.067152] Call trace: [323676.067153] vma_migratable+0x1c/0xd0 [323676.067155] task_numa_work+0x1ec/0x4e0 [323676.067157] task_work_run+0x78/0xd8 [323676.067161] do_notify_resume+0x1ec/0x290 [323676.067163] el0_svc+0x150/0x160 [323676.067167] el0t_64_sync_handler+0xf8/0x128 [323676.067170] el0t_64_sync+0x17c/0x180 [323676.067173] Code: d2888001 910003fd f9000bf3 aa0003f3 (f9401000) [323676.067177] SMP: stopping secondary CPUs [323676.070184] Starting crashdump kernel...

stress-ng-vm-segv in stress-ng is used to stress test the SIGSEGV error handling function of the system, which tries to cause a SIGSEGV error on return from unmapping the whole address space of the child process.

Normally this program will not cause kernel crashes. But before the munmap system call returns to user mode, a potential task_numa_work() for numa balancing could be added and executed. In this scenario, since the child process has no vma after munmap, the vma_next() in task_numa_work() will return a null pointer even if the vma iterator restarts from 0.

Recheck the vma pointer before dereferencing it in task_numa_work().

CVSS Scores

version 3.1