Cyber Resilience

CVE-2024-26792

Memory Safety in Linux Kernel 5.10.210 – 5.11

Published
04 April 2024
Modified
04 August 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 7.8
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0024 14th percentile
Risk Priority 55 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2024-26792 is a high-severity Double Free (CWE-415) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Client Execution (T1203); ranked at the 14th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SA-8 (Security and Privacy Engineering Principles) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: fix double free of anonymous device after snapshot creation failure When creating a snapshot we may do a double free of an anonymous device in case there's an error…

more

committing the transaction. The second free may result in freeing an anonymous device number that was allocated by some other subsystem in the kernel or another btrfs filesystem. The steps that lead to this: 1) At ioctl.c:create_snapshot() we allocate an anonymous device number and assign it to pending_snapshot->anon_dev; 2) Then we call btrfs_commit_transaction() and end up at transaction.c:create_pending_snapshot(); 3) There we call btrfs_get_new_fs_root() and pass it the anonymous device number stored in pending_snapshot->anon_dev; 4) btrfs_get_new_fs_root() frees that anonymous device number because btrfs_lookup_fs_root() returned a root - someone else did a lookup of the new root already, which could some task doing backref walking; 5) After that some error happens in the transaction commit path, and at ioctl.c:create_snapshot() we jump to the 'fail' label, and after that we free again the same anonymous device number, which in the meanwhile may have been reallocated somewhere else, because pending_snapshot->anon_dev still has the same value as in step 1. Recently syzbot ran into this and reported the following trace: ------------[ cut here ]------------ ida_free called for id=51 which is not allocated. WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 31038 at lib/idr.c:525 ida_free+0x370/0x420 lib/idr.c:525 Modules linked in: CPU: 1 PID: 31038 Comm: syz-executor.2 Not tainted 6.8.0-rc4-syzkaller-00410-gc02197fc9076 #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 01/25/2024 RIP: 0010:ida_free+0x370/0x420 lib/idr.c:525 Code: 10 42 80 3c 28 (...) RSP: 0018:ffffc90015a67300 EFLAGS: 00010246 RAX: be5130472f5dd000 RBX: 0000000000000033 RCX: 0000000000040000 RDX: ffffc90009a7a000 RSI: 000000000003ffff RDI: 0000000000040000 RBP: ffffc90015a673f0 R08: ffffffff81577992 R09: 1ffff92002b4cdb4 R10: dffffc0000000000 R11: fffff52002b4cdb5 R12: 0000000000000246 R13: dffffc0000000000 R14: ffffffff8e256b80 R15: 0000000000000246 FS: 00007fca3f4b46c0(0000) GS:ffff8880b9500000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 00007f167a17b978 CR3: 000000001ed26000 CR4: 0000000000350ef0 Call Trace: <TASK> btrfs_get_root_ref+0xa48/0xaf0 fs/btrfs/disk-io.c:1346 create_pending_snapshot+0xff2/0x2bc0 fs/btrfs/transaction.c:1837 create_pending_snapshots+0x195/0x1d0 fs/btrfs/transaction.c:1931 btrfs_commit_transaction+0xf1c/0x3740 fs/btrfs/transaction.c:2404 create_snapshot+0x507/0x880 fs/btrfs/ioctl.c:848 btrfs_mksubvol+0x5d0/0x750 fs/btrfs/ioctl.c:998 btrfs_mksnapshot+0xb5/0xf0 fs/btrfs/ioctl.c:1044 __btrfs_ioctl_snap_create+0x387/0x4b0 fs/btrfs/ioctl.c:1306 btrfs_ioctl_snap_create_v2+0x1ca/0x400 fs/btrfs/ioctl.c:1393 btrfs_ioctl+0xa74/0xd40 vfs_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:51 [inline] __do_sys_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:871 [inline] __se_sys_ioctl+0xfe/0x170 fs/ioctl.c:857 do_syscall_64+0xfb/0x240 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x6f/0x77 RIP: 0033:0x7fca3e67dda9 Code: 28 00 00 00 (...) RSP: 002b:00007fca3f4b40c8 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 0000000000000010 RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 00007fca3e7abf80 RCX: 00007fca3e67dda9 RDX: 00000000200005c0 RSI: 0000000050009417 RDI: 0000000000000003 RBP: 00007fca3e6ca47a R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000 R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 0000000000000000 R13: 000000000000000b R14: 00007fca3e7abf80 R15: 00007fff6bf95658 </TASK> Where we get an explicit message where we attempt to free an anonymous device number that is not currently allocated. It happens in a different code path from the example below, at btrfs_get_root_ref(), so this change may not fix the case triggered by sy ---truncated---

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution Execution
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in client applications to execute code.
T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
T1212 Exploitation for Credential Access Credential Access
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to collect credentials.
T1499 Endpoint Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Endpoint Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of services to users.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

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CVE-2024-50071Same product: Linux Linux Kernel

Affected Assets

linux
linux kernel
5.10.210 — 5.11 · 5.15.149 — 5.16 · 6.1.79 — 6.1.81

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

—

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

—

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 1 hardening rule · 1 OS baseline
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)

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Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and evaluation explicitly includes dynamic analysis and fuzzing that locate double-free defects before release.

Security engineering principles can require memory-safe allocation patterns or language features that structurally eliminate double-free opportunities.

Flaw remediation processes require identification and correction of memory-management defects such as double free once discovered.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 full match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly prevent double-free errors via static analysis, safe memory APIs, and testing.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

finds

Security testing in development can detect double-free conditions before release.

prevents

Secure development life cycle includes memory-safety practices that can prevent double-free bugs.

prevents

Application security requirements can mandate memory-safety rules that reduce double-free risk.

prevents

Secure system architecture and engineering principles can prescribe safe memory-management patterns.

prevents

Secure coding standards directly address proper use of free() and similar functions.

Hardening callouts derived

Configuration rules from DISA STIG baselines that bear on weaknesses of the type cited by this CVE. Each rule is shown with the relationship its mapping actually records, against the CWE it was authored against. Derived via CVE→CWE over `controls_xwalks` (authoritative rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).

Oracle Linux 8 (1 rule)
  • V-248590 OL 8 must clear the page allocator to prevent use-after-free attacks. prevents CWE-415

References