CVE-2024-26923

Updated: 2025-12-28 03:37:27.174213

Description:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: af_unix: Fix garbage collector racing against connect() Garbage collector does not take into account the risk of embryo getting enqueued during the garbage collection. If such embryo has a peer that carries SCM_RIGHTS, two consecutive passes of scan_children() may see a different set of children. Leading to an incorrectly elevated inflight count, and then a dangling pointer within the gc_inflight_list. sockets are AF_UNIX/SOCK_STREAM S is an unconnected socket L is a listening in-flight socket bound to addr, not in fdtable V's fd will be passed via sendmsg(), gets inflight count bumped connect(S, addr) sendmsg(S, [V]); close(V) __unix_gc() ---------------- ------------------------- ----------- NS = unix_create1() skb1 = sock_wmalloc(NS) L = unix_find_other(addr) unix_state_lock(L) unix_peer(S) = NS // V count=1 inflight=0 NS = unix_peer(S) skb2 = sock_alloc() skb_queue_tail(NS, skb2[V]) // V became in-flight // V count=2 inflight=1 close(V) // V count=1 inflight=1 // GC candidate condition met for u in gc_inflight_list: if (total_refs == inflight_refs) add u to gc_candidates // gc_candidates={L, V} for u in gc_candidates: scan_children(u, dec_inflight) // embryo (skb1) was not // reachable from L yet, so V's // inflight remains unchanged __skb_queue_tail(L, skb1) unix_state_unlock(L) for u in gc_candidates: if (u.inflight) scan_children(u, inc_inflight_move_tail) // V count=1 inflight=2 (!) If there is a GC-candidate listening socket, lock/unlock its state. This makes GC wait until the end of any ongoing connect() to that socket. After flipping the lock, a possibly SCM-laden embryo is already enqueued. And if there is another embryo coming, it can not possibly carry SCM_RIGHTS. At this point, unix_inflight() can not happen because unix_gc_lock is already taken. Inflight graph remains unaffected.


Links NIST CIRCL RHEL Ubuntu

Severity

Severity Score
CVSS Version 2.x 0.0
CVSS Version 3.x MEDIUM 4.7

Status

OS name Project name Version Score Severity Status Errata Last updated

Statement

Oracle Linux 7 ELS kernel-uek 5.4.17 4.7 MEDIUM Ignored 2026-01-17 01:20:10 Justification: This bug is local-only in the AF_UNIX subsystem and requires a high‑complexity race...
RHEL 7 ELS kernel 3.10.0 4.7 MEDIUM Released CLSA-2025:1750353839 2025-06-20 00:27:39
Ubuntu 16.04 ELS linux-hwe 4.15.0 4.7 MEDIUM Released CLSA-2024:1721664120 2024-07-22 14:23:56
Ubuntu 16.04 ELS linux 4.4.0 4.7 MEDIUM Released CLSA-2024:1721658474 2024-07-22 12:07:00
Ubuntu 18.04 ELS linux 4.15.0 4.7 MEDIUM Released 2024-07-22 12:07:01
Total: 15