NULL pointer dereference in Linux

CVE-2024-49873

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/filemap: fix filemap_get_folios_contig THP panic Patch series "memfd-pin huge page fixes". Fix multiple bugs that occur when using memfd_pin_folios with hugetlb pages and THP. The hugetlb bugs only bite when the page is not yet faulted in when memfd_pin_folios is called. The THP bug bites when the starting offset passed to memfd_pin_folios is not huge page aligned. See the commit messages for details. This patch (of 5): memfd_pin_folios on memory backed by THP panics if the requested start offset is not huge page aligned: BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000036 RIP: 0010:filemap_get_folios_contig+0xdf/0x290 RSP: 0018:ffffc9002092fbe8 EFLAGS: 00010202 RAX: 0000000000000002 RBX: 0000000000000002 RCX: 0000000000000002 The fault occurs here, because xas_load returns a folio with value 2: filemap_get_folios_contig() for (folio = xas_load(&xas); folio && xas.xa_index <= end; folio = xas_next(&xas)) { ... if (!folio_try_get(folio)) <-- BOOM "2" is an xarray sibling entry. We get it because memfd_pin_folios does not round the indices passed to filemap_get_folios_contig to huge page boundaries for THP, so we load from the middle of a huge page range see a sibling. (It does round for hugetlbfs, at the is_file_hugepages test). To fix, if the folio is a sibling, then return the next index as the starting point for the next call to filemap_get_folios_contig.

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (9.1th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 9th percentile — 9.1% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2024-49873: held from 0.002 to 0.002.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.002 · newest: 0.002 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2024-49873?
CVE-2024-49873 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux, classified under NULL Pointer Dereference. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2024-10-21.
How severe is CVE-2024-49873?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.