# CVE-2024-57939: riscv: Fix sleeping in invalid context in die()

> A bug in the Linux kernel RISC-V architecture causes a system crash when an illegal instruction occurs in a real-time preemptible context.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **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:** Yes
- **Published:** 21 Jan 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** AZL-57596, BELL-CVE-2024-57939, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-57939, GHSA-9pph-vqgh-3wmp, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2024-57939, UBUNTU-CVE-2024-57939

## What is CVE-2024-57939?

CVE-2024-57939 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 21 Jan 2025. 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:

riscv: Fix sleeping in invalid context in die()

die() can be called in exception handler, and therefore cannot sleep.
However, die() takes spinlock_t which can sleep with PREEMPT_RT enabled.
That causes the following warning:

BUG: sleeping function called from invalid context at kernel/locking/spinlock_rt.c:48
in_atomic(): 1, irqs_disabled(): 1, non_block: 0, pid: 285, name: mutex
preempt_count: 110001, expected: 0
RCU nest depth: 0, expected: 0
CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 285 Comm: mutex Not tainted 6.12.0-rc7-00022-ge19049cf7d56-dirty #234
Hardware name: riscv-virtio,qemu (DT)
Call Trace:
    dump_backtrace+0x1c/0x24
    show_stack+0x2c/0x38
    dump_stack_lvl+0x5a/0x72
    dump_stack+0x14/0x1c
    __might_resched+0x130/0x13a
    rt_spin_lock+0x2a/0x5c
    die+0x24/0x112
    do_trap_insn_illegal+0xa0/0xea
    _new_vmalloc_restore_context_a0+0xcc/0xd8
Oops - illegal instruction [#1]

Switch to use raw_spinlock_t, which does not sleep even with PREEMPT_RT
enabled.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-57939?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2024-57939?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2024-57939 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-57939 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2024-57939 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2024-57939 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 21 Jan 2025. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-57939 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-57939/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-57939/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-57939
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-57939
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2024-57939

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-57939/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.