# CVE-2024-57977: memcg: fix soft lockup in the OOM process

> An attacker can cause a soft lockup and system hang by triggering OOM conditions with many tasks, requiring a kernel patch.

- **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:** 27 Feb 2025
- **Updated:** 15 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** AZL-58041, AZL-58053, BELL-CVE-2024-57977, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-57977, GHSA-j98h-85cg-gvmj, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2024-57977, UBUNTU-CVE-2024-57977

## What is CVE-2024-57977?

CVE-2024-57977 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 27 Feb 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:

memcg: fix soft lockup in the OOM process

A soft lockup issue was found in the product with about 56,000 tasks were
in the OOM cgroup, it was traversing them when the soft lockup was
triggered.

watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#2 stuck for 23s! [VM Thread:1503066]
CPU: 2 PID: 1503066 Comm: VM Thread Kdump: loaded Tainted: G
Hardware name: Huawei Cloud OpenStack Nova, BIOS
RIP: 0010:console_unlock+0x343/0x540
RSP: 0000:ffffb751447db9a0 EFLAGS: 00000247 ORIG_RAX: ffffffffffffff13
RAX: 0000000000000001 RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: 00000000ffffffff
RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000004 RDI: 0000000000000247
RBP: ffffffffafc71f90 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000040
R10: 0000000000000080 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: ffffffffafc74bd0
R13: ffffffffaf60a220 R14: 0000000000000247 R15: 0000000000000000
CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
CR2: 00007f2fe6ad91f0 CR3: 00000004b2076003 CR4: 0000000000360ee0
DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000
DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400
Call Trace:
 vprintk_emit+0x193/0x280
 printk+0x52/0x6e
 dump_task+0x114/0x130
 mem_cgroup_scan_tasks+0x76/0x100
 dump_header+0x1fe/0x210
 oom_kill_process+0xd1/0x100
 out_of_memory+0x125/0x570
 mem_cgroup_out_of_memory+0xb5/0xd0
 try_charge+0x720/0x770
 mem_cgroup_try_charge+0x86/0x180
 mem_cgroup_try_charge_delay+0x1c/0x40
 do_anonymous_page+0xb5/0x390
 handle_mm_fault+0xc4/0x1f0

This is because thousands of processes are in the OOM cgroup, it takes a
long time to traverse all of them.  As a result, this lead to soft lockup
in the OOM process.

To fix this issue, call 'cond_resched' in the 'mem_cgroup_scan_tasks'
function per 1000 iterations.  For global OOM, call
'touch_softlockup_watchdog' per 1000 iterations to avoid this issue.

Weakness: CWE-667 (Improper Locking)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-57977?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2024-57977?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2024-57977 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-57977 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-2024-57977 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2024-57977 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 27 Feb 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-2024-57977 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-2024-57977/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-57977/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-57977
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-57977
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2024-57977

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-57977/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.