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Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2024-53079

medium Nessus Plugin ID 231397

Synopsis

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed with a vulnerability that the vendor indicates will not be patched.

Description

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

 - In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/thp: fix deferred split unqueue naming and locking Recent changes are putting more pressure on THP deferred split queues: under load revealing long-standing races, causing list_del corruptions, Bad page states and worse (I keep BUGs in both of those, so usually don't get to see how badly they end up without). The relevant recent changes being 6.8's mTHP, 6.10's mTHP swapout, and 6.12's mTHP swapin, improved swap allocation, and underused THP splitting. Before fixing locking: rename misleading folio_undo_large_rmappable(), which does not undo large_rmappable, to folio_unqueue_deferred_split(), which is what it does. But that and its out-of-line
 __callee are mm internals of very limited usability: add comment and WARN_ON_ONCEs to check usage; and return a bool to say if a deferred split was unqueued, which can then be used in WARN_ON_ONCEs around safety checks (sparing callers the arcane conditionals in __folio_unqueue_deferred_split()). Just omit the folio_unqueue_deferred_split() from free_unref_folios(), all of whose callers now call it beforehand (and if any forget then bad_page() will tell) - except for its caller put_pages_list(), which itself no longer has any callers (and will be deleted separately). Swapout: mem_cgroup_swapout() has been resetting folio->memcg_data 0 without checking and unqueueing a THP folio from deferred split list; which is unfortunate, since the split_queue_lock depends on the memcg (when memcg is enabled); so swapout has been unqueueing such THPs later, when freeing the folio, using the pgdat's lock instead: potentially corrupting the memcg's list. __remove_mapping() has frozen refcount to 0 here, so no problem with calling folio_unqueue_deferred_split() before resetting memcg_data. That goes back to 5.4 commit 87eaceb3faa5 (mm: thp: make deferred split shrinker memcg aware): which included a check on swapcache before adding to deferred queue, but no check on deferred queue before adding THP to swapcache. That worked fine with the usual sequence of events in reclaim (though there were a couple of rare ways in which a THP on deferred queue could have been swapped out), but 6.12 commit dafff3f4c850 (mm: split underused THPs) avoids splitting underused THPs in reclaim, which makes swapcache THPs on deferred queue commonplace. Keep the check on swapcache before adding to deferred queue? Yes: it is no longer essential, but preserves the existing behaviour, and is likely to be a worthwhile optimization (vmstat showed much more traffic on the queue under swapping load if the check was removed); update its comment. Memcg-v1 move (deprecated):
 mem_cgroup_move_account() has been changing folio->memcg_data without checking and unqueueing a THP folio from the deferred list, sometimes corrupting from memcg's list, like swapout. Refcount is non-zero here, so folio_unqueue_deferred_split() can only be used in a WARN_ON_ONCE to validate the fix, which must be done earlier: mem_cgroup_move_charge_pte_range() first try to split the THP (splitting of course unqueues), or skip it if that fails. Not ideal, but moving charge has been requested, and khugepaged should repair the THP later: nobody wants new custom unqueueing code just for this deprecated case. The 87eaceb3faa5 commit did have the code to move from one deferred list to another (but was not conscious of its unsafety while refcount non-0); but that was removed by 5.6 commit fac0516b5534 (mm: thp: don't need care deferred split queue in memcg charge move path), which argued that the existence of a PMD mapping guarantees that the THP cannot be on a deferred list. As above, false in rare cases, and now commonly false. Backport to 6.11 should be straightforward. Earlier backports must take care that other
 _deferred_list fixes and dependencies are included. There is not a strong case for backports, but they can fix cornercases. (CVE-2024-53079)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

Solution

There is no known solution at this time.

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 231397

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2024_53079.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 3/6/2025

Updated: 3/6/2025

Supported Sensors: Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 4.4

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 4.6

Temporal Score: 3.4

Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:N/A:C

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2024-53079

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5.5

Temporal Score: 4.8

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

Required KB Items: Host/cpu, Host/local_checks_enabled, global_settings/vendor_unpatched

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Vulnerability Publication Date: 11/19/2024

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2024-53079