Cyber Resilience

CVE-2024-38613

Race Condition in Linux Kernel 3.7 – 4.19.316

Published
19 June 2024
Modified
17 September 2025
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 0.0018 7th percentile
Risk Priority 36 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-2024-38613 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 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 7th 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 SC-39 (Process Isolation) and SC-4 (Information in Shared System Resources) — 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: m68k: Fix spinlock race in kernel thread creation Context switching does take care to retain the correct lock owner across the switch from 'prev' to 'next' tasks. This does rely…

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on interrupts remaining disabled for the entire duration of the switch. This condition is guaranteed for normal process creation and context switching between already running processes, because both 'prev' and 'next' already have interrupts disabled in their saved copies of the status register. The situation is different for newly created kernel threads. The status register is set to PS_S in copy_thread(), which does leave the IPL at 0. Upon restoring the 'next' thread's status register in switch_to() aka resume(), interrupts then become enabled prematurely. resume() then returns via ret_from_kernel_thread() and schedule_tail() where run queue lock is released (see finish_task_switch() and finish_lock_switch()). A timer interrupt calling scheduler_tick() before the lock is released in finish_task_switch() will find the lock already taken, with the current task as lock owner. This causes a spinlock recursion warning as reported by Guenter Roeck. As far as I can ascertain, this race has been opened in commit 533e6903bea0 ("m68k: split ret_from_fork(), simplify kernel_thread()") but I haven't done a detailed study of kernel history so it may well predate that commit. Interrupts cannot be disabled in the saved status register copy for kernel threads (init will complain about interrupts disabled when finally starting user space). Disable interrupts temporarily when switching the tasks' register sets in resume(). Note that a simple oriw 0x700,%sr after restoring sr is not enough here - this leaves enough of a race for the 'spinlock recursion' warning to still be observed. Tested on ARAnyM and qemu (Quadra 800 emulation).

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2026-46275Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2024-47689Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2026-31761Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2024-38628Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2024-50174Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2025-38242Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2026-45945Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2024-50135Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2024-35798Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2023-23039Same product: Linux Linux Kernel

Affected Assets

linux
linux kernel
3.7 — 4.19.316 · 4.20 — 5.4.278 · 5.5 — 5.10.219

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

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.

References