Linux KernelOperating system · Linux
CVE-2024-46744
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedIn the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: Squashfs: sanity check symbolic link size Syzkiller reports a "KMSAN: uninit-value in pick_link" bug. This is caused by an uninitialised page, which is ultimately caused by a corrupted symbolic link size read from disk. The reason why the corrupted symlink size causes an uninitialised page is due to the following sequence of events: 1. squashfs_read_inode() is called to read the symbolic link from disk. This assigns the corrupted value 3875536935 to inode->i_size. 2. Later squashfs_symlink_read_folio() is called, which assigns this corrupted value to the length variable, which being a signed int, overflows producing a negative number. 3. The following loop that fills in the page contents checks that the copied bytes is less than length, which being negative means the loop is skipped, producing an uninitialised page. This patch adds a sanity check which checks that the symbolic link size is not larger than expected. -- V2: fix spelling mistake.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysisA file operation follows a symbolic link without checking where it actually points, so an attacker who can plant or swap a link redirects the operation to a file they should not be able to touch. It is a common local privilege-escalation primitive. Remediation is resolving and validating the real target path, and avoiding operations on attacker-controllable links.
General guidance for the link following (symlink) class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data
Linux KernelOperating system
< 4.19.322>= 4.20, < 5.4.284>= 5.5, < 5.10.226>= 5.11, < 5.15.167>= 5.16, < 6.1.110>= 6.2, < 6.6.51>= 6.7, < 6.10.10= 6.11CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
dbcve · scoped4.19.3225.4.2845.10.226
Upgrade to kernel 4.19.322+ (for 4.19.x), 5.4.284+ (for 5.4.x), 5.10.226+ (for 5.10.x), or 5.15.167+ (for 5.15.x). For production systems, prefer the distribution's official kernel package that includes this fix.
- 1. Identify the current running Linux kernel version using 'uname -r'
- 2. Determine which kernel branch your version belongs to (e.g., 4.19.x, 5.4.x, 5.10.x, or 5.15.x)
- 3. For kernels < 4.19.322: upgrade to kernel 4.19.322 or later
- 4. For kernels >= 4.20 and < 5.4.284: upgrade to kernel 5.4.284 or later
- 5. For kernels >= 5.5 and < 5.10.226: upgrade to kernel 5.10.226 or later
- 6. For kernels >= 5.11 and < 5.15.167: upgrade to kernel 5.15.167 or later
- 7. If running a distribution kernel (e.g., Ubuntu, Debian, RHEL), apply the distribution's security update for this CVE
- 8. Reboot the system to load the patched kernel
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2024-46744 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2024-46744 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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