CVE-2024-53150
Memory Safety in Linux Kernel ≤ 5.4.287
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:HSummary
CVE-2024-53150 is a high-severity Out-of-bounds Read (CWE-125) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 7.1 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked in the top 31% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; CISA has added it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SA-8 (Security and Privacy Engineering Principles) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
The vulnerability CVE-2024-53150 is an out-of-bounds read (CWE-125) in the Linux kernel ALSA USB-audio driver. It stems from missing validation of the bLength field while traversing clock source, clock multiplier, and clock selector descriptors, so a USB device presenting a shorter-than-expected descriptor can cause the driver to read past the end of the allocated structure.
A local attacker who can attach or emulate a malicious USB audio device is able to trigger the flaw, resulting in disclosure of adjacent kernel memory or a crash that produces a denial of service; the reported CVSS 7.1 vector reflects local access with low complexity and no user interaction.
The five referenced stable kernel commits (096bb5b43edf, 45a92cbc88e4, 74cb86e1006c, a3dd4d63eeb4, a632bdcb359f) mitigate the issue by adding explicit length checks against sizeof the descriptor types plus, for UAC2/UAC3 selectors, the variable bNrInPins array and trailing fields, causing any undersized descriptor to be skipped.
EPSS remains low, moving only from 0.0112 to a peak of 0.0186.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2024-51822
Vulnerability Data
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ALSA: usb-audio: Fix out of bounds reads when finding clock sources The current USB-audio driver code doesn't check bLength of each descriptor at traversing for clock descriptors. That is, when…
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a device provides a bogus descriptor with a shorter bLength, the driver might hit out-of-bounds reads. For addressing it, this patch adds sanity checks to the validator functions for the clock descriptor traversal. When the descriptor length is shorter than expected, it's skipped in the loop. For the clock source and clock multiplier descriptors, we can just check bLength against the sizeof() of each descriptor type. OTOH, the clock selector descriptor of UAC2 and UAC3 has an array of bNrInPins elements and two more fields at its tail, hence those have to be checked in addition to the sizeof() check.
- CWE(s)
- KEV Date Added
- 09 April 2025
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Developer testing and evaluation directly finds out-of-bounds read flaws through static analysis, fuzzing, and dynamic bounds checks.
Secure engineering principles require bounds checking and memory-safe constructs that stop out-of-bounds reads from being introduced.
Process isolation confines the effects of an out-of-bounds read to the compromised process.
Input validation rejects malformed indices or lengths that would otherwise cause reads outside buffer bounds.
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-development practices such as bounds checking and memory-safe languages directly prevent out-of-bounds reads.
Vulnerability scanning and recording can discover instances of out-of-bounds reads after code is deployed.
Routine patching replaces vulnerable code containing out-of-bounds read flaws.
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 in development and acceptance includes fuzzing and static analysis that detect out-of-bounds read defects before release.
Logging can record evidence of an out-of-bounds read but does not prevent the weakness itself.
Secure development life cycle mandates input validation and bounds checking that directly prevent out-of-bounds reads.
Application security requirements include explicit bounds and memory-safety specifications that mitigate buffer over-reads.
Secure system architecture and engineering principles require memory-safe design patterns and runtime protections against out-of-bounds access.
Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe pointer arithmetic and mandate bounds-checked reads, eliminating CWE-125.