CVE-2024-37021 fpga: manager: add owner module and take its refcount

What is CVE-2024-37021?

CVE-2024-37021 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 24 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:

fpga: manager: add owner module and take its refcount

The current implementation of the fpga manager assumes that the low-level module registers a driver for the parent device and uses its owner pointer to take the module's refcount. This approach is problematic since it can lead to a null pointer dereference while attempting to get the manager if the parent device does not have a driver.

To address this problem, add a module owner pointer to the fpga_manager struct and use it to take the module's refcount. Modify the functions for registering the manager to take an additional owner module parameter and rename them to avoid conflicts. Use the old function names for helper macros that automatically set the module that registers the manager as the owner. This ensures compatibility with existing low-level control modules and reduces the chances of registering a manager without setting the owner.

Also, update the documentation to keep it consistent with the new interface for registering an fpga manager.

Other changes: opportunistically move put_device() from __fpga_mgr_get() to fpga_mgr_get() and of_fpga_mgr_get() to improve code clarity since the manager device is taken in these functions.

Weakness: CWE-476

Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-37021?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2024-37021?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2024-37021 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-37021 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 AZL-56303, BELL-CVE-2024-37021, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-37021, GHSA-9g63-jv3j-6766, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2024-37021, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2024-37021 and 1 more.