CVE-2024-57982: xfrm: state: fix out-of-bounds read during lookup

Severity: high (CVSS 7.1 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2025-02-27 · updated 2026-10-30
Weakness: CWE-125

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: xfrm: state: fix out-of-bounds read during lookup lookup and resize can run in parallel. The xfrm_state_hash_generation seqlock ensures a retry, but the hash functions can observe a hmask value that is too large for the new hlist array. rehash does: rcu_assign_pointer(net->xfrm.state_bydst, ndst) [..] net->xfrm.state_hmask = nhashmask; While state lookup does: h = xfrm_dst_hash(net, daddr, saddr, tmpl->reqid, encap_family); hlist_for_each_entry_rcu(x, net->xfrm.state_bydst + h, bydst) { This is only safe in case the update to state_bydst is larger than net->xfrm.xfrm_state_hmask (or if the lookup function gets serialized via state spinlock again). Fix this by prefetching state_hmask and the associated pointers. The xfrm_state_hash_generation seqlock retry will ensure that the pointer and the hmask will be consistent. The existing helpers, like xfrm_dst_hash(), are now unsafe for RCU side, add lockdep assertions to document that they are only safe for insert side. xfrm_state_lookup_byaddr() uses the spinlock rather than RCU. AFAICS this is an oversight from back when state lookup was converted to RCU, this lock should be replaced with RCU in a future patch.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 4.9 before 6.12.13; from 6.13 before 6.13.2 — fixed in 6.12.13, 6.13.2
Linux: 4.9 — fixed in 6.14

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.12.13, 6.13.2; Linux 6.14. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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