Security Resilience

CVE-2024-53121

Race Condition in Linux Kernel 5.1 – 6.1.119

Published
02 December 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 0.0021 10th 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-2024-53121 is a high-severity Race Condition (CWE-362) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).

Operationally, ranked at the 10th 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: net/mlx5: fs, lock FTE when checking if active The referenced commits introduced a two-step process for deleting FTEs: - Lock the FTE, delete it from hardware, set the hardware deletion…

more

function to NULL and unlock the FTE. - Lock the parent flow group, delete the software copy of the FTE, and remove it from the xarray. However, this approach encounters a race condition if a rule with the same match value is added simultaneously. In this scenario, fs_core may set the hardware deletion function to NULL prematurely, causing a panic during subsequent rule deletions. To prevent this, ensure the active flag of the FTE is checked under a lock, which will prevent the fs_core layer from attaching a new steering rule to an FTE that is in the process of deletion. [ 438.967589] MOSHE: 2496 mlx5_del_flow_rules del_hw_func [ 438.968205] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [ 438.968654] refcount_t: decrement hit 0; leaking memory. [ 438.969249] WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 8957 at lib/refcount.c:31 refcount_warn_saturate+0xfb/0x110 [ 438.970054] Modules linked in: act_mirred cls_flower act_gact sch_ingress openvswitch nsh mlx5_vdpa vringh vhost_iotlb vdpa mlx5_ib mlx5_core xt_conntrack xt_MASQUERADE nf_conntrack_netlink nfnetlink xt_addrtype iptable_nat nf_nat br_netfilter rpcsec_gss_krb5 auth_rpcgss oid_registry overlay rpcrdma rdma_ucm ib_iser libiscsi scsi_transport_iscsi ib_umad rdma_cm ib_ipoib iw_cm ib_cm ib_uverbs ib_core zram zsmalloc fuse [last unloaded: cls_flower] [ 438.973288] CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 8957 Comm: tc Not tainted 6.12.0-rc1+ #8 [ 438.973888] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS rel-1.13.0-0-gf21b5a4aeb02-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 [ 438.974874] RIP: 0010:refcount_warn_saturate+0xfb/0x110 [ 438.975363] Code: 40 66 3b 82 c6 05 16 e9 4d 01 01 e8 1f 7c a0 ff 0f 0b c3 cc cc cc cc 48 c7 c7 10 66 3b 82 c6 05 fd e8 4d 01 01 e8 05 7c a0 ff <0f> 0b c3 cc cc cc cc 66 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 0f 1f 00 90 [ 438.976947] RSP: 0018:ffff888124a53610 EFLAGS: 00010286 [ 438.977446] RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: ffff888119d56de0 RCX: 0000000000000000 [ 438.978090] RDX: ffff88852c828700 RSI: ffff88852c81b3c0 RDI: ffff88852c81b3c0 [ 438.978721] RBP: ffff888120fa0e88 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: ffff888124a534b0 [ 438.979353] R10: 0000000000000001 R11: 0000000000000001 R12: ffff888119d56de0 [ 438.979979] R13: ffff888120fa0ec0 R14: ffff888120fa0ee8 R15: ffff888119d56de0 [ 438.980607] FS: 00007fe6dcc0f800(0000) GS:ffff88852c800000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [ 438.983984] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [ 438.984544] CR2: 00000000004275e0 CR3: 0000000186982001 CR4: 0000000000372eb0 [ 438.985205] DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 [ 438.985842] DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 [ 438.986507] Call Trace: [ 438.986799] <TASK> [ 438.987070] ? __warn+0x7d/0x110 [ 438.987426] ? refcount_warn_saturate+0xfb/0x110 [ 438.987877] ? report_bug+0x17d/0x190 [ 438.988261] ? prb_read_valid+0x17/0x20 [ 438.988659] ? handle_bug+0x53/0x90 [ 438.989054] ? exc_invalid_op+0x14/0x70 [ 438.989458] ? asm_exc_invalid_op+0x16/0x20 [ 438.989883] ? refcount_warn_saturate+0xfb/0x110 [ 438.990348] mlx5_del_flow_rules+0x2f7/0x340 [mlx5_core] [ 438.990932] __mlx5_eswitch_del_rule+0x49/0x170 [mlx5_core] [ 438.991519] ? mlx5_lag_is_sriov+0x3c/0x50 [mlx5_core] [ 438.992054] ? xas_load+0x9/0xb0 [ 438.992407] mlx5e_tc_rule_unoffload+0x45/0xe0 [mlx5_core] [ 438.993037] mlx5e_tc_del_fdb_flow+0x2a6/0x2e0 [mlx5_core] [ 438.993623] mlx5e_flow_put+0x29/0x60 [mlx5_core] [ 438.994161] mlx5e_delete_flower+0x261/0x390 [mlx5_core] [ 438.994728] tc_setup_cb_destroy+0xb9/0x190 [ 438.995150] fl_hw_destroy_filter+0x94/0xc0 [cls_flower] [ 438.995650] fl_change+0x11a4/0x13c0 [cls_flower] [ 438.996105] tc_new_tfilter+0x347/0xbc0 [ 438.996503] ? __ ---truncated---

CWE(s)

Related Threats

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-52740Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2026-23411Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2024-49859Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2024-38613Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2024-40953Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2025-39726Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2025-71078Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2026-23161Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2025-21943Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2024-50135Same product: Linux Linux Kernel

Affected Assets

linux
linux kernel
6.12 · 5.1 — 6.1.119 · 6.2 — 6.6.63 · 6.7 — 6.11.10

Mitigating Controls

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

Hardening callouts derived

DISA STIG baselines are authored against specific weaknesses. Where this CVE cites a broad weakness class, the mapping is not asserted at that abstraction (owner ruling, 2026-09-25: grade only at Base and below), so no rule is shown here rather than a rule shown against the wrong grain.

  • No fine-grained STIG row for CWE-362, a class-level weakness, and none of its children carries one either.

References