CVE-2024-36962 net: ks8851: Queue RX packets in IRQ handler instead of disabling BHs

What is CVE-2024-36962?

CVE-2024-36962 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 3 Jun 2024. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

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

net: ks8851: Queue RX packets in IRQ handler instead of disabling BHs

Currently the driver uses local_bh_disable()/local_bh_enable() in its IRQ handler to avoid triggering net_rx_action() softirq on exit from netif_rx(). The net_rx_action() could trigger this driver .start_xmit callback, which is protected by the same lock as the IRQ handler, so calling the .start_xmit from netif_rx() from the IRQ handler critical section protected by the lock could lead to an attempt to claim the already claimed lock, and a hang.

The local_bh_disable()/local_bh_enable() approach works only in case the IRQ handler is protected by a spinlock, but does not work if the IRQ handler is protected by mutex, i.e. this works for KS8851 with Parallel bus interface, but not for KS8851 with SPI bus interface.

Remove the BH manipulation and instead of calling netif_rx() inside the IRQ handler code protected by the lock, queue all the received SKBs in the IRQ handler into a queue first, and once the IRQ handler exits the critical section protected by the lock, dequeue all the queued SKBs and push them all into netif_rx(). At this point, it is safe to trigger the net_rx_action() softirq, since the netif_rx() call is outside of the lock that protects the IRQ handler.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-36962?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2024-36962?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2024-36962 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-36962 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
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as BELL-CVE-2024-36962, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-36962, GHSA-j27x-m3vr-xwcf, UBUNTU-CVE-2024-36962.