Linux KernelOperating system · Linux

CVE-2024-46828

HIGH · 7.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2024-09-27
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 5.4.284 / 5.10.226 or later.
See remediation →
80/100
Remediation priority · High
Zero-click Patch available

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 · unedited
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sched: sch_cake: fix bulk flow accounting logic for host fairness In sch_cake, we keep track of the count of active bulk flows per host, when running in dst/src host fairness mode, which is used as the round-robin weight when iterating through flows. The count of active bulk flows is updated whenever a flow changes state. This has a peculiar interaction with the hash collision handling: when a hash collision occurs (after the set-associative hashing), the state of the hash bucket is simply updated to match the new packet that collided, and if host fairness is enabled, that also means assigning new per-host state to the flow. For this reason, the bulk flow counters of the host(s) assigned to the flow are decremented, before new state is assigned (and the counters, which may not belong to the same host anymore, are incremented again). Back when this code was introduced, the host fairness mode was always enabled, so the decrement was unconditional. When the configuration flags were introduced the *increment* was made conditional, but the *decrement* was not. Which of course can lead to a spurious decrement (and associated wrap-around to U16_MAX). AFAICT, when host fairness is disabled, the decrement and wrap-around happens as soon as a hash collision occurs (which is not that common in itself, due to the set-associative hashing). However, in most cases this is harmless, as the value is only used when host fairness mode is enabled. So in order to trigger an array overflow, sch_cake has to first be configured with host fairness disabled, and while running in this mode, a hash collision has to occur to cause the overflow. Then, the qdisc has to be reconfigured to enable host fairness, which leads to the array out-of-bounds because the wrapped-around value is retained and used as an array index. It seems that syzbot managed to trigger this, which is quite impressive in its own right. This patch fixes the issue by introducing the same conditional check on decrement as is used on increment. The original bug predates the upstreaming of cake, but the commit listed in the Fixes tag touched that code, meaning that this patch won't apply before that.

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 analysis

A detailed technical summary for this CVE is being prepared.

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
Affected:>= 5.1, < 5.4.284>= 5.10, < 5.10.226>= 5.15, < 5.15.167>= 6.1, < 6.1.110>= 6.6, < 6.6.51>= 6.10, < 6.10.10= 6.11

CVSS 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 · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 5.4.284 / 5.10.226 / 5.15.167 or later
Fixed in 5.4.2845.10.2265.15.167
Vendor patch git.kernel.org →
Recommended fix High confidence

Linux Kernel 5.4.284 / 5.10.226 / 5.15.167 / 6.1.110 or later (choose the branch matching your current kernel)

  1. Identify the current kernel version using 'uname -r'
  2. Determine which version branch your current kernel is from (e.g., 5.15.x, 6.1.x)
  3. Upgrade the Linux kernel to a version that includes the fix: for 5.4.x branch upgrade to >= 5.4.284, for 5.10.x branch upgrade to >= 5.10.226, for 5.15.x branch upgrade to >= 5.15.167, or for 6.1.x branch upgrade to >= 6.1.110
  4. Use your distribution's package manager to install the updated kernel (e.g., 'apt update && apt upgrade' for Debian/Ubuntu, 'yum update' for RHEL/CentOS, or 'pacman -Syu' for Arch)
  5. Reboot the system to load the fixed kernel
Caveat Kernel upgrades may require reboot and could have minor driver/module compatibility changes; test in staging if possible

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $1,950. Get the upgrade done

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

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