# CVE-2021-47594: mptcp: never allow the PM to close a listener subflow

> A local attacker can trigger a kernel crash by deleting an MPTCP endpoint, causing a null pointer dereference in the path manager.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 19 Jun 2024
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2021-47594, GHSA-34pw-x3jp-c8x5, UBUNTU-CVE-2021-47594

## What is CVE-2021-47594?

CVE-2021-47594 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 19 Jun 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

mptcp: never allow the PM to close a listener subflow

Currently, when deleting an endpoint the netlink PM treverses
all the local MPTCP sockets, regardless of their status.

If an MPTCP listener socket is bound to the IP matching the
delete endpoint, the listener TCP socket will be closed.
That is unexpected, the PM should only affect data subflows.

Additionally, syzbot was able to trigger a NULL ptr dereference
due to the above:

general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000003: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN
KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000018-0x000000000000001f]
CPU: 1 PID: 6550 Comm: syz-executor122 Not tainted 5.16.0-rc4-syzkaller #0
Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 01/01/2011
RIP: 0010:__lock_acquire+0xd7d/0x54a0 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:4897
Code: 0f 0e 41 be 01 00 00 00 0f 86 c8 00 00 00 89 05 69 cc 0f 0e e9 bd 00 00 00 48 b8 00 00 00 00 00 fc ff df 48 89 da 48 c1 ea 03 <80> 3c 02 00 0f 85 f3 2f 00 00 48 81 3b 20 75 17 8f 0f 84 52 f3 ff
RSP: 0018:ffffc90001f2f818 EFLAGS: 00010016
RAX: dffffc0000000000 RBX: 0000000000000018 RCX: 0000000000000000
RDX: 0000000000000003 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: 0000000000000001
RBP: 0000000000000000 R08: 0000000000000001 R09: 0000000000000001
R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 000000000000000a R12: 0000000000000000
R13: ffff88801b98d700 R14: 0000000000000000 R15: 0000000000000001
FS:  00007f177cd3d700(0000) GS:ffff8880b9d00000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
CR2: 00007f177cd1b268 CR3: 000000001dd55000 CR4: 0000000000350ee0
Call Trace:
 <TASK>
 lock_acquire kernel/locking/lockdep.c:5637 [inline]
 lock_acquire+0x1ab/0x510 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:5602
 __raw_spin_lock_irqsave include/linux/spinlock_api_smp.h:110 [inline]
 _raw_spin_lock_irqsave+0x39/0x50 kernel/locking/spinlock.c:162
 finish_wait+0xc0/0x270 kernel/sched/wait.c:400
 inet_csk_wait_for_connect net/ipv4/inet_connection_sock.c:464 [inline]
 inet_csk_accept+0x7de/0x9d0 net/ipv4/inet_connection_sock.c:497
 mptcp_accept+0xe5/0x500 net/mptcp/protocol.c:2865
 inet_accept+0xe4/0x7b0 net/ipv4/af_inet.c:739
 mptcp_stream_accept+0x2e7/0x10e0 net/mptcp/protocol.c:3345
 do_accept+0x382/0x510 net/socket.c:1773
 __sys_accept4_file+0x7e/0xe0 net/socket.c:1816
 __sys_accept4+0xb0/0x100 net/socket.c:1846
 __do_sys_accept net/socket.c:1864 [inline]
 __se_sys_accept net/socket.c:1861 [inline]
 __x64_sys_accept+0x71/0xb0 net/socket.c:1861
 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 [inline]
 do_syscall_64+0x35/0xb0 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80
 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae
RIP: 0033:0x7f177cd8b8e9
Code: 28 00 00 00 75 05 48 83 c4 28 c3 e8 b1 14 00 00 90 48 89 f8 48 89 f7 48 89 d6 48 89 ca 4d 89 c2 4d 89 c8 4c 8b 4c 24 08 0f 05 <48> 3d 01 f0 ff ff 73 01 c3 48 c7 c1 b8 ff ff ff f7 d8 64 89 01 48
RSP: 002b:00007f177cd3d308 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 000000000000002b
RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 00007f177ce13408 RCX: 00007f177cd8b8e9
RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: 0000000000000003
RBP: 00007f177ce13400 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000
R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 00007f177ce1340c
R13: 00007f177cde1004 R14: 6d705f706374706d R15: 0000000000022000
 </TASK>

Fix the issue explicitly skipping MPTCP socket in TCP_LISTEN
status.

Weakness: CWE-476 (NULL Pointer Dereference)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-47594?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2021-47594?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2021-47594 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-47594 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2021-47594 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2021-47594 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 19 Jun 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-47594 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-47594/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-47594/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-47594
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-47594
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2021-47594

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2021-47594/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.