CVE-2024-40900: cachefiles: remove requests from xarray during flushing requests

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2024-40900 is a high (CVSS 7.8) Use After Free vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.28% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 20.9% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 12-07-2024
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 05-08-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: cachefiles: remove requests from xarray during flushing requests Even with CACHEFILES_DEAD set, we can still read the requests, so in the following concurrency the request may be used after it has been freed: mount | daemon_thread1 | daemon_thread2 ------------------------------------------------------------ cachefiles_ondemand_init_object cachefiles_ondemand_send_req REQ_A = kzalloc(sizeof(*req) + data_len) wait_for_completion(&REQ_A->done) cachefiles_daemon_read cachefiles_ondemand_daemon_read // close dev fd cachefiles_flush_reqs complete(&REQ_A->done) kfree(REQ_A) xa_lock(&cache->reqs); cachefiles_ondemand_select_req req->msg.opcode != CACHEFILES_OP_READ // req use-after-free !!! xa_unlock(&cache->reqs); xa_destroy(&cache->reqs) Hence remove requests from cache->reqs when flushing them to avoid accessing freed requests.

• CWE-416Use After FreeThe product reuses or references memory after it has been freed. At some point afterward, the memory may be allocated again and saved in another pointer, while the original pointer references a location somewhere within the new allocation. Any operations using the original pointer are no longer valid because the memory "belongs" to the code that operates on the new pointer.