CVE-2024-53096
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: mm: resolve faulty mmap_region() error path behaviour The mmap_region() function is somewhat terrifying, with spaghetti-like control flow and numerous means by which issues can arise and incomplete state, memory leaks and other unpleasantness can occur. A large amount of the complexity arises from trying to handle errors late in the process of mapping a VMA, which forms the basis of recently observed issues with resource leaks and observable inconsistent state. Taking advantage of previous patches in this series we move a number of checks earlier in the code, simplifying things by moving the core of the logic into a static internal function __mmap_region(). Doing this allows us to perform a number of checks up front before we do any real work, and allows us to unwind the writable unmap check unconditionally as required and to perform a CONFIG_DEBUG_VM_MAPLE_TREE validation unconditionally also. We move a number of things here: 1. We preallocate memory for the iterator before we call the file-backed memory hook, allowing us to exit early and avoid having to perform complicated and error-prone close/free logic. We carefully free iterator state on both success and error paths. 2. The enclosing mmap_region() function handles the mapping_map_writable() logic early. Previously the logic had the mapping_map_writable() at the point of mapping a newly allocated file-backed VMA, and a matching mapping_unmap_writable() on success and error paths. We now do this unconditionally if this is a file-backed, shared writable mapping. If a driver changes the flags to eliminate VM_MAYWRITE, however doing so does not invalidate the seal check we just performed, and we in any case always decrement the counter in the wrapper. We perform a debug assert to ensure a driver does not attempt to do the opposite. 3. We also move arch_validate_flags() up into the mmap_region() function. This is only relevant on arm64 and sparc64, and the check is only meaningful for SPARC with ADI enabled. We explicitly add a warning for this arch if a driver invalidates this check, though the code ought eventually to be fixed to eliminate the need for this. With all of these measures in place, we no longer need to explicitly close the VMA on error paths, as we place all checks which might fail prior to a call to any driver mmap hook. This eliminates an entire class of errors, makes the code easier to reason about and more robust.
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 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>= 5.10.150, < 5.10.231>= 5.15.75, < 5.15.174>= 6.0.3, < 6.1.119>= 6.2, < 6.6.63>= 6.7, < 6.12= 5.19.17= 6.12CVSS 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 · scoped5.10.2315.15.1746.1.119
Upgrade to Linux kernel >= 5.10.231 (for 5.10.x), >= 5.15.174 (for 5.15.x), >= 6.1.119 (for 6.1.x), or >= 6.6.63 (for 6.2-6.6.x)
- Identify your current Linux kernel version using 'uname -r'
- Determine your Linux distribution (e.g., Ubuntu, Debian, Red Hat, CentOS, etc.)
- For Ubuntu/Debian: Run 'sudo apt-get update' then 'sudo apt-get upgrade linux-image-generic' to upgrade to the latest available kernel
- For RHEL/CentOS: Run 'sudo yum update kernel' to upgrade to the latest available kernel
- For other distributions, use the distribution's standard package manager to update the kernel package
- After upgrading, reboot the system to load the new kernel: 'sudo reboot'
- Verify the new kernel version includes the fix by checking 'uname -r' matches a version >= 5.10.231, >= 5.15.174, >= 6.1.119, or >= 6.6.63 as appropriate for your base version
- Alternatively, verify the kernel contains commit 43323a4e5b3f8ccc08e2f835abfdc7ee9da8f6ed using 'grep 43323a4e5b3f8ccc08e2f835abfdc7ee9da8f6ed /proc/version' or checking kernel source
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-2024-53096 — 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-2024-53096 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
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