medium CVSS 5.5

CVE-2024-36936·Kernel vulnerability

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: efi/unaccepted: touch soft lockup during memory accept Commit 50e782a86c98 ("efi/unaccepted: Fix soft lockups caused by parallel memory acceptance") has released the spinlock so other CPUs can do memory acceptance in parallel and not triggers softlockup on other CPUs. However the softlock up was intermittent shown up if the memory of the TD guest is large, and the timeout of softlockup is set to 1 second: RIP: 0010:_raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore Call Trace: ? __hrtimer_run_queues <IRQ> ? hrtimer_interrupt ? watchdog_timer_fn ? __sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt ? __pfx_watchdog_timer_fn ? sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt </IRQ> ? __hrtimer_run_queues <TASK> ? hrtimer_interrupt ? asm_sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt ? _raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore ? __sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt ? sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt accept_memory try_to_accept_memory do_huge_pmd_anonymous_page get_page_from_freelist __handle_mm_fault __alloc_pages __folio_alloc ? __tdx_hypercall handle_mm_fault vma_alloc_folio do_user_addr_fault do_huge_pmd_anonymous_page exc_page_fault ? __do_huge_pmd_anonymous_page asm_exc_page_fault __handle_mm_fault When the local irq is enabled at the end of accept_memory(), the softlockup detects that the watchdog on single CPU has not been fed for a while. That is to say, even other CPUs will not be blocked by spinlock, the current CPU might be stunk with local irq disabled for a while, which hurts not only nmi watchdog but also softlockup. Chao Gao pointed out that the memory accept could be time costly and there was similar report before. Thus to avoid any softlocup detection during this stage, give the softlockup a flag to skip the timeout check at the end of accept_memory(), by invoking touch_softlockup_watchdog().

Severity: medium
Software: Kernel
Fixed in: 6.8.10
Published: 2024-05-30

Affected versions

From: 6.7

Until: 6.8.10

Fixed in: 6.8.10

How to fix this CVE

Update your Linux kernel to version 6.8.10 or later to resolve a soft lockup issue that occurs during EFI memory acceptance operations on large-memory systems. This vulnerability primarily affects virtualized environments (TD guests) where extended memory acceptance periods without proper watchdog updates cause false soft lockup detections. Apply the patch immediately if you are running kernel versions 6.7 through 6.8.9.

sudo dnf update kernel kernel-devel

Defensia detects this vulnerability

How to check if you are affected

Step 1: Check your current kernel version with `uname -r` and compare against the vulnerable range 6.7.x to 6.8.9
Step 2: Verify if the system is running in a virtualized TD (Trusted Domain) environment or uses EFI memory acceptance by checking `dmesg | grep -i 'unaccepted\|efi'`
Step 3: Search kernel logs for soft lockup warnings with `grep -i 'soft lockup' /var/log/kern.log` or `journalctl -k | grep -i 'soft lockup'` that correlate with memory allocation patterns
Step 4: After updating to 6.8.10+, confirm the fix with `uname -r` and verify no soft lockup warnings appear during high-memory allocation workloads

FAQ

What is CVE-2024-36936?

This CVE addresses a soft lockup detection vulnerability in the Linux kernel's EFI memory acceptance code. During large memory acceptance operations, the watchdog timer is not properly reset, causing false soft lockup warnings even though the system is functioning normally.

Is CVE-2024-36936 being actively exploited?

No, CVE-2024-36936 is not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog and has no public exploits available. This is a stability issue rather than a security vulnerability that could be weaponized.

What versions of Kernel are affected by CVE-2024-36936?

Linux kernel versions 6.7.x through 6.8.9 are affected. Version 6.8.10 and later contain the fix.

How do I check if my server is vulnerable to CVE-2024-36936?

Run `uname -r` to get your kernel version. If it returns a version between 6.7.0 and 6.8.9, your system is vulnerable. Cross-reference with your system's package manager using `apt show linux-image-generic` (Ubuntu/Debian) or `dnf info kernel` (RHEL/CentOS).

Does Defensia detect CVE-2024-36936?

Yes — Defensia's CVE advisory scanner compares installed package versions against the NVD database. If the Linux kernel is installed on a monitored server, CVE-2024-36936 will appear in your dashboard with remediation steps.

Related Kernel CVEs

CVE-2026-100075CVSS 9.8In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: RDMA/srpt: Fix srpt_alloc_rw_ctxs() unwind counters When srpt_alloc_rw_ctxs() fails partway through a multi-buffer indirect descriptor, the unwind path destroys RDMA contexts but leaves stale n_rw_ctx and n_rdma values (and a dangling rw_ctxs pointer). Later sq_wr_avail accounting in srpt_queue_response() or srpt_write_pending() can then subtract the wrong number of send queue credits. Reset the counters and clear rw_ctxs after freeing the heap allocation before returning an error.

CVE-2026-64397CVSS 9.8In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ksmbd: serialize QUERY_DIRECTORY requests per file smb2_query_dir() stores a pointer to its stack-allocated private data in the ksmbd_file readdir_data. Concurrent QUERY_DIRECTORY requests using the same file handle can overwrite this pointer while an iterate_dir() callback is still using it, resulting in a stack use-after-free. Add a per-file mutex and hold it while accessing the shared directory enumeration state. The lock covers scan restart, dot entry state, readdir_data setup and iteration, and response construction. This prevents another request from replacing readdir_data.private before the current request has finished using it and also serializes the shared file position.

CVE-2026-64399CVSS 9.8In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ksmbd: add permission checks for FSCTL_DUPLICATE_EXTENTS_TO_FILE The FSCTL_DUPLICATE_EXTENTS_TO_FILE arm of smb2_ioctl() overwrites the destination file's data via vfs_clone_file_range() with neither the share-level KSMBD_TREE_CONN_FLAG_WRITABLE check nor a per-handle fp->daccess check that the other write-bearing arms carry. A client can overwrite destination data on a read-only share, or from a handle opened with only FILE_WRITE_ATTRIBUTES (which still yields an FMODE_WRITE filp). FILE_WRITE_ATTRIBUTES-only destination handle overwrote the file's data via the clone. Add both checks, matching the FSCTL_SET_SPARSE permission fix; require FILE_WRITE_DATA since this writes data.

CVE-2026-64066CVSS 9.8In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: netfs: Fix netfs_read_to_pagecache() to pause on subreq failure Fix netfs_read_to_pagecache() so that it pauses the generation of new subrequests if an already-issued subrequest fails.

CVE-2026-52924CVSS 9.8In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sctp: purge outqueue on stale COOKIE-ECHO handling sctp_stream_update() is only invoked when the association is moved into COOKIE_WAIT during association setup/reconfiguration. In this path, the outbound stream scheduler state (stream->out_curr) is expected to be clean, since no user data should have been transmitted yet unless the state machine has already partially progressed. However, a corner case exists in sctp_sf_do_5_2_6_stale(): when a Stale Cookie ERROR is received, the association is rolled back from COOKIE_ECHOED to COOKIE_WAIT. In this scenario, user data may already have been queued and even bundled with the COOKIE-ECHO chunk. During the rollback, sctp_stream_update() frees the old stream table and installs a new one, but it does not invalidate stream->out_curr. As a result, out_curr may still point to a freed sctp_stream_out entry from the previous stream state. Later, SCTP scheduler dequeue paths (FCFS, RR, PRIO, etc.) rely on stream->out_curr->ext, which can lead to use-after-free once the old stream state has been released via sctp_stream_free(). This results in crashes such as (reported by Yuqi): BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in sctp_sched_fcfs_dequeue+0x13a/0x140 Read of size 8 at addr ff1100004d4d3208 by task mini_poc/9312 CPU: 1 UID: 1001 PID: 9312 Comm: mini_poc Not tainted 7.1.0-rc1-00305-gbd3a4795d574 #5 PREEMPT(full) sctp_sched_fcfs_dequeue+0x13a/0x140 sctp_outq_flush+0x1603/0x33e0 sctp_do_sm+0x31c9/0x5d30 sctp_assoc_bh_rcv+0x392/0x6f0 sctp_inq_push+0x1db/0x270 sctp_rcv+0x138d/0x3c10 Fix this by fully purging the association outqueue when handling the Stale Cookie case. This ensures all pending transmit and retransmit state is dropped, and any scheduler cached pointers are invalidated, making it safe to rebuild stream state during COOKIE_WAIT restart. Updating only stream->out_curr would be insufficient, since queued and retransmittable data would still reference the old stream state and trigger later use-after-free in dequeue paths.

References

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