Cyber Resilience

CVE-2024-56588

Memory Safety in Linux Kernel ≤ 6.12.5

Published
27 December 2024
Modified
09 January 2025
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 5.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0023 14th percentile
Risk Priority 42 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-2024-56588 is a medium-severity NULL Pointer Dereference (CWE-476) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 5.5 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Endpoint Denial of Service (T1499); ranked at the 14th 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 SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SA-15 (Development Process, Standards, and Tools) — 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: scsi: hisi_sas: Create all dump files during debugfs initialization For the current debugfs of hisi_sas, after user triggers dump, the driver allocate memory space to save the register information and…

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create debugfs files to display the saved information. In this process, the debugfs files created after each dump. Therefore, when the dump is triggered while the driver is unbind, the following hang occurs: [67840.853907] Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000000000000a0 [67840.862947] Mem abort info: [67840.865855] ESR = 0x0000000096000004 [67840.869713] EC = 0x25: DABT (current EL), IL = 32 bits [67840.875125] SET = 0, FnV = 0 [67840.878291] EA = 0, S1PTW = 0 [67840.881545] FSC = 0x04: level 0 translation fault [67840.886528] Data abort info: [67840.889524] ISV = 0, ISS = 0x00000004, ISS2 = 0x00000000 [67840.895117] CM = 0, WnR = 0, TnD = 0, TagAccess = 0 [67840.900284] GCS = 0, Overlay = 0, DirtyBit = 0, Xs = 0 [67840.905709] user pgtable: 4k pages, 48-bit VAs, pgdp=0000002803a1f000 [67840.912263] [00000000000000a0] pgd=0000000000000000, p4d=0000000000000000 [67840.919177] Internal error: Oops: 0000000096000004 [#1] PREEMPT SMP [67840.996435] pstate: 80400009 (Nzcv daif +PAN -UAO -TCO -DIT -SSBS BTYPE=--) [67841.003628] pc : down_write+0x30/0x98 [67841.007546] lr : start_creating.part.0+0x60/0x198 [67841.012495] sp : ffff8000b979ba20 [67841.016046] x29: ffff8000b979ba20 x28: 0000000000000010 x27: 0000000000024b40 [67841.023412] x26: 0000000000000012 x25: ffff20202b355ae8 x24: ffff20202b35a8c8 [67841.030779] x23: ffffa36877928208 x22: ffffa368b4972240 x21: ffff8000b979bb18 [67841.038147] x20: ffff00281dc1e3c0 x19: fffffffffffffffe x18: 0000000000000020 [67841.045515] x17: 0000000000000000 x16: ffffa368b128a530 x15: ffffffffffffffff [67841.052888] x14: ffff8000b979bc18 x13: ffffffffffffffff x12: ffff8000b979bb18 [67841.060263] x11: 0000000000000000 x10: 0000000000000000 x9 : ffffa368b1289b18 [67841.067640] x8 : 0000000000000012 x7 : 0000000000000000 x6 : 00000000000003a9 [67841.075014] x5 : 0000000000000000 x4 : ffff002818c5cb00 x3 : 0000000000000001 [67841.082388] x2 : 0000000000000000 x1 : ffff002818c5cb00 x0 : 00000000000000a0 [67841.089759] Call trace: [67841.092456] down_write+0x30/0x98 [67841.096017] start_creating.part.0+0x60/0x198 [67841.100613] debugfs_create_dir+0x48/0x1f8 [67841.104950] debugfs_create_files_v3_hw+0x88/0x348 [hisi_sas_v3_hw] [67841.111447] debugfs_snapshot_regs_v3_hw+0x708/0x798 [hisi_sas_v3_hw] [67841.118111] debugfs_trigger_dump_v3_hw_write+0x9c/0x120 [hisi_sas_v3_hw] [67841.125115] full_proxy_write+0x68/0xc8 [67841.129175] vfs_write+0xd8/0x3f0 [67841.132708] ksys_write+0x70/0x108 [67841.136317] __arm64_sys_write+0x24/0x38 [67841.140440] invoke_syscall+0x50/0x128 [67841.144385] el0_svc_common.constprop.0+0xc8/0xf0 [67841.149273] do_el0_svc+0x24/0x38 [67841.152773] el0_svc+0x38/0xd8 [67841.156009] el0t_64_sync_handler+0xc0/0xc8 [67841.160361] el0t_64_sync+0x1a4/0x1a8 [67841.164189] Code: b9000882 d2800002 d2800023 f9800011 (c85ffc05) [67841.170443] ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- To fix this issue, create all directories and files during debugfs initialization. In this way, the driver only needs to allocate memory space to save information each time the user triggers dumping.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1499 Endpoint Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Endpoint Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of services to users.
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.
T1489 Service Stop Impact
Adversaries may stop or disable services on a system to render those services unavailable to legitimate users.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

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CVE-2023-53364Same product: Linux Linux Kernel

Affected Assets

linux
linux kernel
≤ 6.12.5

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and evaluation (including static analysis) directly finds null-dereference bugs before deployment.

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.

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 (static analysis, code review, safe coding standards) directly prevent NULL dereference bugs during development.

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 NULL dereference defects before release.

prevents

Secure SDLC mandates defensive coding practices that can prevent NULL dereferences.

prevents

Application security requirements can specify input validation and pointer-safety rules.

prevents

Secure architecture principles encourage defensive design that avoids unsafe pointer use.

prevents

Secure coding standards directly require NULL-pointer checks and safe dereference patterns.

References