Junglewise Threat Intelligence

CVE-2024-40978: Linux Kernel qedi driver crash in debugfs attribute reading

CVE-2024-40978 · Severity: high · CVSS 7.1 · Published 2024-07-12

Technologies: Linux Kernel. Vendors: Linux.

Executive brief

A vulnerability in the Linux kernel's QLogic iSCSI (qedi) driver could allow a local user to crash the system. The issue occurs when the system attempts to read specific debug information, leading to a kernel panic. This could result in a complete service outage or denial of service for affected servers.

Technical details

The vulnerability is an out-of-bounds read/write (CWE-125) in the qedi_dbg_do_not_recover_cmd_read() function within the QLogic iSCSI (qedi) driver. The root cause is the direct use of sprintf() on a __user pointer, which bypasses proper memory safety checks and leads to a page fault/kernel oops. An attacker with local access to debugfs could trigger this crash by reading the affected attribute. The fix involves using a local stack buffer and simple_read_from_buffer() to safely handle the data transfer between kernel and user space. Patches have been released for multiple stable kernel branches.

Affected products

  • Linux Linux Kernel up to 4.19.317, 4.20 to 5.4.279, 5.5 to 5.10.221, 5.11 to 5.15.162, 5.16 to 6.1.96, 6.2 to 6.6.36, 6.7 to 6.9.7

Timeline

  • 2024-04-15: disclosed: Initial patch submission
  • 2024-07-05: patched: Commits merged into stable branches
  • 2024-07-12: advisory: CVE published

References

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