CVE-2024-46971
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 · uneditedSoftware installed and run as a non-privileged user may conduct GPU system calls to read and write freed physical memory from the GPU.
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 · moderate confidenceA use-after-free vulnerability in GPU system call handling allows non-privileged users to read and write freed physical memory from the GPU. This breaks memory isolation between users and could enable privilege escalation or container/VM escape by manipulating deallocated GPU memory.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
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
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify GPU hardware and driverRun 'lspci | grep -i gpu' to list GPU devices, then check the driver in use (e.g., 'ls -la /sys/class/drm/*/device/driver' or 'lsmod | grep -i video'). For vendor-specific drivers, check their version utilities (nvidia-smi, clinfo, etc.)Affected if GPU hardware and its kernel driver are present in the system
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Compare driver version to vendor advisoriesCheck the installed driver version against any vendor security advisories for CVE-2024-46971. Look for version numbers in the driver module or use vendor tools to query the version.Affected if The driver version matches a version range cited in vendor vulnerability documentation
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Verify non-privileged GPU access is possibleCheck if unprivileged users can access GPU devices. Look at permissions on /dev/dri/*, /dev/nvidia*, or similar GPU device nodes. Run 'ls -la /dev/dri/* /dev/nvidia* 2>/dev/null' and check if any device is readable/writable by non-root users.Affected if Non-privileged (non-root) users have read or write access to GPU device nodes
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Check for GPU passthrough or container assignmentInspect whether GPUs are being passed through to containers or VMs. Check container runtime configs, libvirt VM configs, or look for GPU device assignment in /proc/bus/pci or via 'lsof | grep nvidia' or similar.Affected if GPU devices are directly assigned to unprivileged containers or VMs without additional isolation
A system is affected if it uses a GPU driver version vulnerable to CVE-2024-46971 AND allows non-privileged users access to GPU resources (directly or through container/VM passthrough).
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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.
From vendor dataApply vendor-supplied kernel and GPU driver patches; consider restricting non-privileged user access to GPU resources until patches are deployed.
- Consultation6.0 h
- Implementation12.0 h
- Testing10.0 h
- Review / QA6.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2024-46971 — 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-2024-46971 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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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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