CVE-2024-36890: mm/slab: make __free(kfree) accept error pointers

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2024-05-30 · updated 2026-08-04
Weakness: CWE-763

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/slab: make __free(kfree) accept error pointers Currently, if an automatically freed allocation is an error pointer that will lead to a crash. An example of this is in wm831x_gpio_dbg_show(). 171 char *label __free(kfree) = gpiochip_dup_line_label(chip, i); 172 if (IS_ERR(label)) { 173 dev_err(wm831x->dev, "Failed to duplicate label\n"); 174 continue; 175 } The auto clean up function should check for error pointers as well, otherwise we're going to keep hitting issues like this.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 6.1.79 before 6.1.91; from 6.5 before 6.6.31; from 6.7 before 6.8.10; 6.9-rc1, 6.9-rc2, 6.9-rc3, 6.9-rc4, 6.9-rc5, 6.9-rc6 (+1) — fixed in 6.1.91, 6.6.31, 6.8.10

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.1.91, 6.6.31, 6.8.10. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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