# CVE-2024-26780: af_unix: Fix task hung while purging oob_skb in GC.

> A local attacker can cause a task hang and infinite loop in the Linux kernel's Unix socket garbage collection, leading to denial of service.

- **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:** 4 Apr 2024
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2024-26780, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-26780, GHSA-95rc-29j2-q3vr, UBUNTU-CVE-2024-26780

## What is CVE-2024-26780?

CVE-2024-26780 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 4 Apr 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:

af_unix: Fix task hung while purging oob_skb in GC.

syzbot reported a task hung; at the same time, GC was looping infinitely
in list_for_each_entry_safe() for OOB skb.  [0]

syzbot demonstrated that the list_for_each_entry_safe() was not actually
safe in this case.

A single skb could have references for multiple sockets.  If we free such
a skb in the list_for_each_entry_safe(), the current and next sockets could
be unlinked in a single iteration.

unix_notinflight() uses list_del_init() to unlink the socket, so the
prefetched next socket forms a loop itself and list_for_each_entry_safe()
never stops.

Here, we must use while() and make sure we always fetch the first socket.

[0]:
Sending NMI from CPU 0 to CPUs 1:
NMI backtrace for cpu 1
CPU: 1 PID: 5065 Comm: syz-executor236 Not tainted 6.8.0-rc3-syzkaller-00136-g1f719a2f3fa6 #0
Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 01/25/2024
RIP: 0010:preempt_count arch/x86/include/asm/preempt.h:26 [inline]
RIP: 0010:check_kcov_mode kernel/kcov.c:173 [inline]
RIP: 0010:__sanitizer_cov_trace_pc+0xd/0x60 kernel/kcov.c:207
Code: cc cc cc cc 66 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 f3 0f 1e fa 65 48 8b 14 25 40 c2 03 00 <65> 8b 05 b4 7c 78 7e a9 00 01 ff 00 48 8b 34 24 74 0f f6 c4 01 74
RSP: 0018:ffffc900033efa58 EFLAGS: 00000283
RAX: ffff88807b077800 RBX: ffff88807b077800 RCX: 1ffffffff27b1189
RDX: ffff88802a5a3b80 RSI: ffffffff8968488d RDI: ffff88807b077f70
RBP: ffffc900033efbb0 R08: 0000000000000001 R09: fffffbfff27a900c
R10: ffffffff93d48067 R11: ffffffff8ae000eb R12: ffff88807b077800
R13: dffffc0000000000 R14: ffff88807b077e40 R15: 0000000000000001
FS:  0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff8880b9500000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
CR2: 0000564f4fc1e3a8 CR3: 000000000d57a000 CR4: 00000000003506f0
DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000
DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400
Call Trace:
 <NMI>
 </NMI>
 <TASK>
 unix_gc+0x563/0x13b0 net/unix/garbage.c:319
 unix_release_sock+0xa93/0xf80 net/unix/af_unix.c:683
 unix_release+0x91/0xf0 net/unix/af_unix.c:1064
 __sock_release+0xb0/0x270 net/socket.c:659
 sock_close+0x1c/0x30 net/socket.c:1421
 __fput+0x270/0xb80 fs/file_table.c:376
 task_work_run+0x14f/0x250 kernel/task_work.c:180
 exit_task_work include/linux/task_work.h:38 [inline]
 do_exit+0xa8a/0x2ad0 kernel/exit.c:871
 do_group_exit+0xd4/0x2a0 kernel/exit.c:1020
 __do_sys_exit_group kernel/exit.c:1031 [inline]
 __se_sys_exit_group kernel/exit.c:1029 [inline]
 __x64_sys_exit_group+0x3e/0x50 kernel/exit.c:1029
 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:52 [inline]
 do_syscall_64+0xd5/0x270 arch/x86/entry/common.c:83
 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x6f/0x77
RIP: 0033:0x7f9d6cbdac09
Code: Unable to access opcode bytes at 0x7f9d6cbdabdf.
RSP: 002b:00007fff5952feb8 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 00000000000000e7
RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: 00007f9d6cbdac09
RDX: 000000000000003c RSI: 00000000000000e7 RDI: 0000000000000000
RBP: 00007f9d6cc552b0 R08: ffffffffffffffb8 R09: 0000000000000006
R10: 0000000000000006 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 00007f9d6cc552b0
R13: 0000000000000000 R14: 00007f9d6cc55d00 R15: 00007f9d6cbabe70
 </TASK>

Weakness: CWE-835 (Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-26780?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2024-26780?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2024-26780 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-26780 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-2024-26780 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2024-26780 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 4 Apr 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-2024-26780 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-2024-26780/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-26780/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-26780
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-26780
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2024-26780

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-26780/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.