CVE-2024-36901 ipv6: prevent NULL dereference in ip6_output()

What is CVE-2024-36901?

CVE-2024-36901 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 30 May 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:

ipv6: prevent NULL dereference in ip6_output()

According to syzbot, there is a chance that ip6_dst_idev() returns NULL in ip6_output(). Most places in IPv6 stack deal with a NULL idev just fine, but not here.

syzbot reported:

general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc00000000bc: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN PTI KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x00000000000005e0-0x00000000000005e7] CPU: 0 PID: 9775 Comm: syz-executor.4 Not tainted 6.9.0-rc5-syzkaller-00157-g6a30653b604a #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 03/27/2024 RIP: 0010:ip6_output+0x231/0x3f0 net/ipv6/ip6_output.c:237 Code: 3c 1e 00 49 89 df 74 08 4c 89 ef e8 19 58 db f7 48 8b 44 24 20 49 89 45 00 49 89 c5 48 8d 9d e0 05 00 00 48 89 d8 48 c1 e8 03 <42> 0f b6 04 38 84 c0 4c 8b 74 24 28 0f 85 61 01 00 00 8b 1b 31 ff RSP: 0018:ffffc9000927f0d8 EFLAGS: 00010202 RAX: 00000000000000bc RBX: 00000000000005e0 RCX: 0000000000040000 RDX: ffffc900131f9000 RSI: 0000000000004f47 RDI: 0000000000004f48 RBP: 0000000000000000 R08: ffffffff8a1f0b9a R09: 1ffffffff1f51fad R10: dffffc0000000000 R11: fffffbfff1f51fae R12: ffff8880293ec8c0 R13: ffff88805d7fc000 R14: 1ffff1100527d91a R15: dffffc0000000000 FS: 00007f135c6856c0(0000) GS:ffff8880b9400000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 0000000020000080 CR3: 0000000064096000 CR4: 00000000003506f0 DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 Call Trace: <TASK> NF_HOOK include/linux/netfilter.h:314 [inline] ip6_xmit+0xefe/0x17f0 net/ipv6/ip6_output.c:358 sctp_v6_xmit+0x9f2/0x13f0 net/sctp/ipv6.c:248 sctp_packet_transmit+0x26ad/0x2ca0 net/sctp/output.c:653 sctp_packet_singleton+0x22c/0x320 net/sctp/outqueue.c:783 sctp_outq_flush_ctrl net/sctp/outqueue.c:914 [inline] sctp_outq_flush+0x6d5/0x3e20 net/sctp/outqueue.c:1212 sctp_side_effects net/sctp/sm_sideeffect.c:1198 [inline] sctp_do_sm+0x59cc/0x60c0 net/sctp/sm_sideeffect.c:1169 sctp_primitive_ASSOCIATE+0x95/0xc0 net/sctp/primitive.c:73 __sctp_connect+0x9cd/0xe30 net/sctp/socket.c:1234 sctp_connect net/sctp/socket.c:4819 [inline] sctp_inet_connect+0x149/0x1f0 net/sctp/socket.c:4834 __sys_connect_file net/socket.c:2048 [inline] __sys_connect+0x2df/0x310 net/socket.c:2065 __do_sys_connect net/socket.c:2075 [inline] __se_sys_connect net/socket.c:2072 [inline] __x64_sys_connect+0x7a/0x90 net/socket.c:2072 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:52 [inline] do_syscall_64+0xf5/0x240 arch/x86/entry/common.c:83 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f

Weakness: CWE-476

Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-36901?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2024-36901?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2024-36901 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-36901 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• How this page is made

Also known as AZL-42444, AZL-42495, BELL-CVE-2024-36901, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-36901, UBUNTU-CVE-2024-36901.