CVE-2024-26998

serial: core: Clearing the circular buffer before NULLifying it

MEDIUM
5.5
CVSS Score
Published: May 1, 2024 at 05:28 AM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 07:18 AM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorLinux Kernel

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Severity
MEDIUM5.5
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.2%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: serial: core: Clearing the circular buffer before NULLifying it The circular buffer is NULLified in uart_tty_port_shutdown() under the spin lock. However, the PM or other timer based callbacks may still trigger after this event without knowning that buffer pointer is not valid. Since the serial code is a bit inconsistent in checking the buffer state (some rely on the head-tail positions, some on the buffer pointer), it's better to have both aligned, i.e. buffer pointer to be NULL and head-tail possitions to be the same, meaning it's empty. This will prevent asynchronous calls to dereference NULL pointer as reported recently in 8250 case: BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 00000cf5 Workqueue: pm pm_runtime_work EIP: serial8250_tx_chars (drivers/tty/serial/8250/8250_port.c:1809) ... ? serial8250_tx_chars (drivers/tty/serial/8250/8250_port.c:1809) __start_tx (drivers/tty/serial/8250/8250_port.c:1551) serial8250_start_tx (drivers/tty/serial/8250/8250_port.c:1654) serial_port_runtime_suspend (include/linux/serial_core.h:667 drivers/tty/serial/serial_port.c:63) __rpm_callback (drivers/base/power/runtime.c:393) ? serial_port_remove (drivers/tty/serial/serial_port.c:50) rpm_suspend (drivers/base/power/runtime.c:447) The proposed change will prevent ->start_tx() to be called during suspend on shut down port.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

v ≥ 6.7.126.6.24 ≤ v < 6.6.296.7.12 ≤ v < 6.86.8 ≤ v < 6.8.86.8 ≤ v < 6.943066e32227ecde674e8ae1fcdd4a1ede67680c2434beb66368d4fb4d3119c2116b9398500adbf476.6.246.7.126.9 rc16.9 rc26.9 rc36.9 rc4a629a9b2f7699314a4abe8fbc37b0ee667b60f33
Vendor states this is fixed in 7ae7104d54342433a3a73975f6569beefdd86350 (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in 9cf7ea2eeb745213dc2a04103e426b960e807940 (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in bb1118905e875c111d7ccef9aee86ac5e4e7f985 (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.6.29 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.8 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.8.8 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.9 (unaffected)

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitNot automatablePartial impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

Attack Vector
LOCAL
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
LOW
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
NONE
Availability
HIGH
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusMODIFIED
CWE
CWE-476

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