CVE-2024-44971 net: dsa: bcm_sf2: Fix a possible memory leak in bcm_sf2_mdio_register()

What is CVE-2024-44971?

CVE-2024-44971 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 4 Sep 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: dsa: bcm_sf2: Fix a possible memory leak in bcm_sf2_mdio_register()

bcm_sf2_mdio_register() calls of_phy_find_device() and then phy_device_remove() in a loop to remove existing PHY devices. of_phy_find_device() eventually calls bus_find_device(), which calls get_device() on the returned struct device * to increment the refcount. The current implementation does not decrement the refcount, which causes memory leak.

This commit adds the missing phy_device_free() call to decrement the refcount via put_device() to balance the refcount.

Weakness: CWE-401

Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-44971?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2024-44971?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2024-44971 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-44971 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-48653, BELL-CVE-2024-44971, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-44971, GHSA-xqr4-wc4c-36xj, UBUNTU-CVE-2024-44971.