Cyber Resilience

CVE-2024-35949

Memory Safety in Linux Kernel ≤ 6.6.85

Published
20 May 2024
Modified
23 December 2025
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 15th percentile
Risk Priority 55 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2024-35949 is a high-severity Out-of-bounds Write (CWE-787) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004); ranked at the 15th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: make sure that WRITTEN is set on all metadata blocks We previously would call btrfs_check_leaf() if we had the check integrity code enabled, which meant that we could only…

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run the extended leaf checks if we had WRITTEN set on the header flags. This leaves a gap in our checking, because we could end up with corruption on disk where WRITTEN isn't set on the leaf, and then the extended leaf checks don't get run which we rely on to validate all of the item pointers to make sure we don't access memory outside of the extent buffer. However, since 732fab95abe2 ("btrfs: check-integrity: remove CONFIG_BTRFS_FS_CHECK_INTEGRITY option") we no longer call btrfs_check_leaf() from btrfs_mark_buffer_dirty(), which means we only ever call it on blocks that are being written out, and thus have WRITTEN set, or that are being read in, which should have WRITTEN set. Add checks to make sure we have WRITTEN set appropriately, and then make sure __btrfs_check_leaf() always does the item checking. This will protect us from file systems that have been corrupted and no longer have WRITTEN set on some of the blocks. This was hit on a crafted image tweaking the WRITTEN bit and reported by KASAN as out-of-bound access in the eb accessors. The example is a dir item at the end of an eb. [2.042] BTRFS warning (device loop1): bad eb member start: ptr 0x3fff start 30572544 member offset 16410 size 2 [2.040] general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xe0009d1000000003: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN NOPTI [2.537] KASAN: maybe wild-memory-access in range [0x0005088000000018-0x000508800000001f] [2.729] CPU: 0 PID: 2587 Comm: mount Not tainted 6.8.2 #1 [2.729] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.15.0-1 04/01/2014 [2.621] RIP: 0010:btrfs_get_16+0x34b/0x6d0 [2.621] RSP: 0018:ffff88810871fab8 EFLAGS: 00000206 [2.621] RAX: 0000a11000000003 RBX: ffff888104ff8720 RCX: ffff88811b2288c0 [2.621] RDX: dffffc0000000000 RSI: ffffffff81dd8aca RDI: ffff88810871f748 [2.621] RBP: 000000000000401a R08: 0000000000000001 R09: ffffed10210e3ee9 [2.621] R10: ffff88810871f74f R11: 205d323430333737 R12: 000000000000001a [2.621] R13: 000508800000001a R14: 1ffff110210e3f5d R15: ffffffff850011e8 [2.621] FS: 00007f56ea275840(0000) GS:ffff88811b200000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [2.621] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [2.621] CR2: 00007febd13b75c0 CR3: 000000010bb50000 CR4: 00000000000006f0 [2.621] Call Trace: [2.621] <TASK> [2.621] ? show_regs+0x74/0x80 [2.621] ? die_addr+0x46/0xc0 [2.621] ? exc_general_protection+0x161/0x2a0 [2.621] ? asm_exc_general_protection+0x26/0x30 [2.621] ? btrfs_get_16+0x33a/0x6d0 [2.621] ? btrfs_get_16+0x34b/0x6d0 [2.621] ? btrfs_get_16+0x33a/0x6d0 [2.621] ? __pfx_btrfs_get_16+0x10/0x10 [2.621] ? __pfx_mutex_unlock+0x10/0x10 [2.621] btrfs_match_dir_item_name+0x101/0x1a0 [2.621] btrfs_lookup_dir_item+0x1f3/0x280 [2.621] ? __pfx_btrfs_lookup_dir_item+0x10/0x10 [2.621] btrfs_get_tree+0xd25/0x1910 [ copy more details from report ]

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

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.
Why these techniques?

The BTRFS vulnerability enables denial of service via kernel crash from out-of-bounds access when mounting a crafted filesystem image lacking the WRITTEN flag on metadata blocks, exploiting the system during directory lookup.

CVEs Like This One

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CVE-2024-1151Same product: Fedoraproject Fedora
CVE-2024-29133Same product: Fedoraproject Fedora
CVE-2024-32760Same product: Fedoraproject Fedora
CVE-2023-1073Same product: Fedoraproject Fedora
CVE-2024-29131Same product: Fedoraproject Fedora
CVE-2024-43825Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2023-53077Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2024-40987Same product: Linux Linux Kernel

Affected Assets

linux
linux kernel
6.9 · ≤ 6.6.85 · 6.7 — 6.8.10
fedoraproject
fedora
40

Mitigating Controls

Likely Mitigating Controls AI

Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.

addresses: CWE-787

Out-of-bounds writes that corrupt control flow or inject shellcode are rendered non-executable by the same memory protections.

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-development practices (static analysis, bounds checking, code review) are the primary means of preventing out-of-bounds writes.

ID.RA-01 partial match
prevents

Vulnerability scanning and recording can discover out-of-bounds write flaws so they can be remediated.

PR.PS-02 partial match
prevents

Patching or replacing vulnerable software directly eliminates known instances of this coding weakness.

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.

detects

Security testing in development and acceptance can detect and prevent out-of-bounds write defects.

prevents

Secure development life cycle mandates practices that prevent out-of-bounds writes.

prevents

Application security requirements can specify bounds-checking and safe memory handling.

prevents

Secure architecture and engineering principles reduce the likelihood of buffer overflows.

prevents

Secure coding directly addresses out-of-bounds writes through language choice and coding standards.

prevents

Change management can enforce review gates that catch unsafe memory operations before deployment.

References