Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

mm, slub: avoid zeroing kmalloc redzone

Since commit 946fa0dbf2d8 ("mm/slub: extend redzone check to extra
allocated kmalloc space than requested"), setting orig_size treats
the wasted space (object_size - orig_size) as a redzone. However with
init_on_free=1 we clear the full object->size, including the redzone.

Additionally we clear the object metadata, including the stored orig_size,
making it zero, which makes check_object() treat the whole object as a
redzone.

These issues lead to the following BUG report with "slub_debug=FUZ
init_on_free=1":

[ 0.000000] =============================================================================
[ 0.000000] BUG kmalloc-8 (Not tainted): kmalloc Redzone overwritten
[ 0.000000] -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ 0.000000]
[ 0.000000] 0xffff000010032858-0xffff00001003285f @offset=2136. First byte 0x0 instead of 0xcc
[ 0.000000] FIX kmalloc-8: Restoring kmalloc Redzone 0xffff000010032858-0xffff00001003285f=0xcc
[ 0.000000] Slab 0xfffffdffc0400c80 objects=36 used=23 fp=0xffff000010032a18 flags=0x3fffe0000000200(workingset|node=0|zone=0|lastcpupid=0x1ffff)
[ 0.000000] Object 0xffff000010032858 @offset=2136 fp=0xffff0000100328c8
[ 0.000000]
[ 0.000000] Redzone ffff000010032850: cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc ........
[ 0.000000] Object ffff000010032858: cc cc cc cc cc cc c...

Classification

CVE ID: CVE-2024-49885

CVSS Base Severity: MEDIUM

CVSS Base Score: 5.5

CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected Products

Vendor: Linux

Product: Linux

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

EPSS Score: 0.03% (probability of being exploited)

EPSS Percentile: 7.25% (scored less or equal to compared to others)

EPSS Date: 2025-06-02 (when was this score calculated)

Stakeholder-Specific Vulnerability Categorization (SSVC)

SSVC Exploitation: none

SSVC Technical Impact: partial

SSVC Automatable: false

References

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-49885
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7a2e823a19746d54052c625faecf0d2d6c52ee0a
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/83f0440b2f92227fcce9898118ca7fe7e0d64b1f
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/59090e479ac78ae18facd4c58eb332562a23020e

Timeline