CVE-2024-56560 slab: Fix too strict alignment check in create_cache()
A strict alignment check in the Linux kernel slab allocator causes a kernel panic on m68k architectures, leading to a denial of service.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2024-56560?
CVE-2024-56560 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 27 Dec 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:
slab: Fix too strict alignment check in create_cache()
On m68k, where the minimum alignment of unsigned long is 2 bytes:
Kernel panic - not syncing: __kmem_cache_create_args: Failed to create slab 'io_kiocb'. Error -22 CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 1 Comm: swapper Not tainted 6.12.0-atari-03776-g7eaa1f99261a #1783 Stack from 0102fe5c: 0102fe5c 00514a2b 00514a2b ffffff00 00000001 0051f5ed 00425e78 00514a2b 0041eb74 ffffffea 00000310 0051f5ed ffffffea ffffffea 00601f60 00000044 0102ff20 000e7a68 0051ab8e 004383b8 0051f5ed ffffffea 000000b8 00000007 01020c00 00000000 000e77f0 0041e5f0 005f67c0 0051f5ed 000000b6 0102fef4 00000310 0102fef4 00000000 00000016 005f676c 0060a34c 00000010 00000004 00000038 0000009a 01000000 000000b8 005f668e 0102e000 00001372 0102ff88 Call Trace: [<00425e78>] dump_stack+0xc/0x10 [<0041eb74>] panic+0xd8/0x26c [<000e7a68>] __kmem_cache_create_args+0x278/0x2e8 [<000e77f0>] __kmem_cache_create_args+0x0/0x2e8 [<0041e5f0>] memset+0x0/0x8c [<005f67c0>] io_uring_init+0x54/0xd2
The minimal alignment of an integral type may differ from its size, hence is not safe to assume that an arbitrary freeptr_t (which is basically an unsigned long) is always aligned to 4 or 8 bytes.
As nothing seems to require the additional alignment, it is safe to fix this by relaxing the check to the actual minimum alignment of freeptr_t.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-56560?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2024-56560?
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-2024-56560 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-56560 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2024-56560, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-56560, GHSA-2j8j-3mm8-v4qx, UBUNTU-CVE-2024-56560.