CVE-2024-50271: signal: restore the override_rlimit logic

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: 2024-11-19 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-770

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: signal: restore the override_rlimit logic Prior to commit d64696905554 ("Reimplement RLIMIT_SIGPENDING on top of ucounts") UCOUNT_RLIMIT_SIGPENDING rlimit was not enforced for a class of signals. However now it's enforced unconditionally, even if override_rlimit is set. This behavior change caused production issues. For example, if the limit is reached and a process receives a SIGSEGV signal, sigqueue_alloc fails to allocate the necessary resources for the signal delivery, preventing the signal from being delivered with siginfo. This prevents the process from correctly identifying the fault address and handling the error. From the user-space perspective, applications are unaware that the limit has been reached and that the siginfo is effectively 'corrupted'. This can lead to unpredictable behavior and crashes, as we observed with java applications. Fix this by passing override_rlimit into inc_rlimit_get_ucounts() and skip the comparison to max there if override_rlimit is set. This effectively restores the old behavior.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 5.14 before 6.1.117; from 6.2 before 6.6.61; from 6.7 before 6.11.8; 6.12-rc1, 6.12-rc2, 6.12-rc3, 6.12-rc4, 6.12-rc5, 6.12-rc6 — fixed in 6.1.117, 6.11.8, 6.6.61

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.1.117, 6.11.8, 6.6.61. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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