Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HSummary
CVE-2024-49998 is a medium-severity Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition (CWE-367) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 4.7 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Path Interception (T1034); 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 AC-25 (Reference Monitor) and SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2024-43672
Vulnerability Data
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: dsa: improve shutdown sequence Alexander Sverdlin presents 2 problems during shutdown with the lan9303 driver. One is specific to lan9303 and the other just happens to reproduce there. The…
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first problem is that lan9303 is unique among DSA drivers in that it calls dev_get_drvdata() at "arbitrary runtime" (not probe, not shutdown, not remove): phy_state_machine() -> ... -> dsa_user_phy_read() -> ds->ops->phy_read() -> lan9303_phy_read() -> chip->ops->phy_read() -> lan9303_mdio_phy_read() -> dev_get_drvdata() But we never stop the phy_state_machine(), so it may continue to run after dsa_switch_shutdown(). Our common pattern in all DSA drivers is to set drvdata to NULL to suppress the remove() method that may come afterwards. But in this case it will result in an NPD. The second problem is that the way in which we set dp->conduit->dsa_ptr = NULL; is concurrent with receive packet processing. dsa_switch_rcv() checks once whether dev->dsa_ptr is NULL, but afterwards, rather than continuing to use that non-NULL value, dev->dsa_ptr is dereferenced again and again without NULL checks: dsa_conduit_find_user() and many other places. In between dereferences, there is no locking to ensure that what was valid once continues to be valid. Both problems have the common aspect that closing the conduit interface solves them. In the first case, dev_close(conduit) triggers the NETDEV_GOING_DOWN event in dsa_user_netdevice_event() which closes user ports as well. dsa_port_disable_rt() calls phylink_stop(), which synchronously stops the phylink state machine, and ds->ops->phy_read() will thus no longer call into the driver after this point. In the second case, dev_close(conduit) should do this, as per Documentation/networking/driver.rst: | Quiescence | ---------- | | After the ndo_stop routine has been called, the hardware must | not receive or transmit any data. All in flight packets must | be aborted. If necessary, poll or wait for completion of | any reset commands. So it should be sufficient to ensure that later, when we zeroize conduit->dsa_ptr, there will be no concurrent dsa_switch_rcv() call on this conduit. The addition of the netif_device_detach() function is to ensure that ioctls, rtnetlinks and ethtool requests on the user ports no longer propagate down to the driver - we're no longer prepared to handle them. The race condition actually did not exist when commit 0650bf52b31f ("net: dsa: be compatible with masters which unregister on shutdown") first introduced dsa_switch_shutdown(). It was created later, when we stopped unregistering the user interfaces from a bad spot, and we just replaced that sequence with a racy zeroization of conduit->dsa_ptr (one which doesn't ensure that the interfaces aren't up).
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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V15.4.2V17.2.6
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
A reference monitor that is always invoked and analyzable structurally eliminates the non-atomic check-then-use pattern underlying TOCTOU.
Developer testing and evaluation (including static analysis) directly finds null-dereference bugs before deployment.
Access enforcement that performs an atomic check-and-use decision directly stops the window in which a TOCTOU race can be exploited.
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.
Process isolation limits the blast radius of a successful TOCTOU exploitation but does not remove the race itself.
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.
Secure SDLC practices directly include coding standards and reviews that prevent TOCTOU 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.
Security testing can detect NULL dereference defects before release.
Secure SDLC mandates defensive coding practices that can prevent NULL dereferences.
Application security requirements can specify input validation and pointer-safety rules.
Secure architecture principles encourage defensive design that avoids unsafe pointer use.
Secure coding standards directly require NULL-pointer checks and safe dereference patterns.
Reliable, synchronized time across systems narrows the exploitable window in which a resource state can change between a security check and its use.