CVE-2024-44937: platform/x86: intel-vbtn: Protect ACPI notify handler against recursion

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: 2024-08-26 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-476

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: platform/x86: intel-vbtn: Protect ACPI notify handler against recursion Since commit e2ffcda16290 ("ACPI: OSL: Allow Notify () handlers to run on all CPUs") ACPI notify handlers like the intel-vbtn notify_handler() may run on multiple CPU cores racing with themselves. This race gets hit on Dell Venue 7140 tablets when undocking from the keyboard, causing the handler to try and register priv->switches_dev twice, as can be seen from the dev_info() message getting logged twice: [ 83.861800] intel-vbtn INT33D6:00: Registering Intel Virtual Switches input-dev after receiving a switch event [ 83.861858] input: Intel Virtual Switches as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.0/PNP0C09:00/INT33D6:00/input/input17 [ 83.861865] intel-vbtn INT33D6:00: Registering Intel Virtual Switches input-dev after receiving a switch event After which things go seriously wrong: [ 83.861872] sysfs: cannot create duplicate filename '/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.0/PNP0C09:00/INT33D6:00/input/input17' ... [ 83.861967] kobject: kobject_add_internal failed for input17 with -EEXIST, don't try to register things with the same name in the same directory. [ 83.877338] BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000018 ... Protect intel-vbtn notify_handler() from racing with itself with a mutex to fix this.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 6.8 before 6.10.5; 6.11-rc1, 6.11-rc2 — fixed in 6.10.5

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.10.5. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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