CVE-2024-38553 net: fec: remove .ndo_poll_controller to avoid deadlocks

What is CVE-2024-38553?

CVE-2024-38553 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:

net: fec: remove .ndo_poll_controller to avoid deadlocks

There is a deadlock issue found in sungem driver, please refer to the commit ac0a230f719b ("eth: sungem: remove .ndo_poll_controller to avoid deadlocks"). The root cause of the issue is that netpoll is in atomic context and disable_irq() is called by .ndo_poll_controller interface of sungem driver, however, disable_irq() might sleep. After analyzing the implementation of fec_poll_controller(), the fec driver should have the same issue. Due to the fec driver uses NAPI for TX completions, the .ndo_poll_controller is unnecessary to be implemented in the fec driver, so fec_poll_controller() can be safely removed.

Weakness: CWE-667

Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-38553?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2024-38553?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2024-38553 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-38553 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-48252, BELL-CVE-2024-38553, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-38553, GHSA-2hgc-w527-6cxw, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2024-38553, UBUNTU-CVE-2024-38553.