Junglewise Threat Intelligence

CVE-2024-27076: Linux Kernel memory leak in i.MX media csc/scaler driver

CVE-2024-27076 · Severity: medium · CVSS 5.5 · Published 2024-05-01

Technologies: Linux Kernel. Vendors: Linux.

Executive brief

A memory leak vulnerability exists in the Linux kernel's i.MX media driver, which handles video scaling and color space conversion. This flaw allows a local user to gradually consume system memory by repeatedly triggering certain media operations, potentially leading to a system crash or performance degradation. The issue has been resolved in various stable kernel updates.

Technical details

A memory leak vulnerability (CWE-401) was identified in the Linux kernel's i.MX media driver within the csc/scaler component. The root cause is the failure to free memory allocated by 'v4l2_ctrl_handler_init' during the release phase of the 'ipu_csc_scaler' device. A local attacker with low privileges can exploit this by repeatedly opening and closing the media device, causing the kernel to leak memory until the system encounters an Out-of-Memory (OOM) condition. The fix involves adding a call to 'v4l2_ctrl_handler_free' in the 'ipu_csc_scaler_release' function. Patches have been backported to multiple stable kernel branches including 5.4.y, 5.10.y, 5.15.y, 6.1.y, 6.6.y, 6.7.y, and 6.8.y.

Affected products

  • Linux Linux Kernel 5.4 to 5.4.273, 5.5 to 5.10.214, 5.11 to 5.15.153, 5.16 to 6.1.83, 6.2 to 6.6.23, 6.7 to 6.7.11, 6.8 to 6.8.2

Timeline

  • 2024-05-01: advisory: Initial publication of the CVE record.
  • 2024-02-16: patched: Mainline kernel patch committed.

References

Related threats