Cyber Resilience

CVE-2024-26878

Memory Safety in Linux Kernel ≤ 4.19.311

Published
17 April 2024
Modified
12 May 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 4.7
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0019 9th percentile
Risk Priority 36 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2024-26878 is a medium-severity Race Condition (CWE-362) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 4.7 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Endpoint Denial of Service (T1499); ranked at the 9th 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-15 (Development Process, Standards, and Tools) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: quota: Fix potential NULL pointer dereference Below race may cause NULL pointer dereference P1 P2 dquot_free_inode quota_off drop_dquot_ref remove_dquot_ref dquots = i_dquot(inode) dquots = i_dquot(inode) srcu_read_lock dquots[cnt]) != NULL (1)…

more

dquots[type] = NULL (2) spin_lock(&dquots[cnt]->dq_dqb_lock) (3) .... If dquot_free_inode(or other routines) checks inode's quota pointers (1) before quota_off sets it to NULL(2) and use it (3) after that, NULL pointer dereference will be triggered. So let's fix it by using a temporary pointer to avoid this issue.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

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.
T1499.004 Application or System Exploitation Impact
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities that can cause an application or system to crash and deny availability to users.
T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
T1489 Service Stop Impact
Adversaries may stop or disable services on a system to render those services unavailable to legitimate users.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2025-39857Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-38203Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-39920Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-23145Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-38683Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-38034Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-38337Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2024-36941Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2025-39902Same product: Debian Debian Linux
CVE-2024-26744Same product: Debian Debian Linux

Affected Assets

linux
linux kernel
≤ 4.19.311 · 4.20 — 5.4.273 · 5.5 — 5.10.214
debian
debian linux
10.0

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V10.4.2
  • V10.4.5
  • V15.1.3
  • V15.4.1

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and evaluation (including static analysis) directly finds null-dereference bugs before deployment.

Documented development standards and tools can enforce null-safety rules and safe pointer usage.

Engineering principles can mandate defensive coding such as explicit null checks before dereference.

Maintaining separate execution domains for each process structurally eliminates unintended concurrent access to the same shared resources.

Preventing unintended information transfer through shared system resources directly addresses the improper concurrent modification that defines a race condition.

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 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly require proper synchronization primitives and concurrency testing that prevent race conditions.

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 can detect race conditions, but does not prevent them at design or coding time.

prevents

Secure SDLC mandates concurrency controls and synchronization primitives that directly prevent race conditions.

prevents

Application security requirements can specify thread-safety and locking rules, but do not prescribe implementation details.

prevents

Secure architecture principles require proper synchronization and resource isolation, addressing the root cause of CWE-362.

prevents

Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe concurrent access patterns and mandate atomic operations or locks.

none

Change management reduces introduction of concurrency bugs during updates, yet does not address the weakness itself.

References