CVE Catalog

CVE-2024-35996

MediumCVSS 5.5
Published: Updated: Translated: NVD NIST

Exploitation Probability (EPSS)

Low risk
0.24%

14th percentile - higher than 14% of all known CVEs

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the configuration disabling CPU mitigations by default for non-x86 architectures was incorrectly applied because SPECULATION_MITIGATIONS is x86-specific. The fix renames and forces mitigations on for all architectures except x86.

Risk Assessment

Unintentional disabling of CPU mitigations on non-x86 architectures may increase susceptibility to side-channel attacks such as Spectre. Affects data confidentiality.

Recommendation

Update the Linux kernel to a version with the fix. Ensure CPU mitigations are enabled on all architectures.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

See all
Original NVD description (English source)

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: cpu: Re-enable CPU mitigations by default for !X86 architectures Rename x86's to CPU_MITIGATIONS, define it in generic code, and force it on for all architectures exception x86. A recent commit to turn mitigations off by default if SPECULATION_MITIGATIONS=n kinda sorta missed that "cpu_mitigations" is completely generic, whereas SPECULATION_MITIGATIONS is x86-specific. Rename x86's SPECULATIVE_MITIGATIONS instead of keeping both and have it select CPU_MITIGATIONS, as having two configs for the same thing is unnecessary and confusing. This will also allow x86 to use the knob to manage mitigations that aren't strictly related to speculative execution. Use another Kconfig to communicate to common code that CPU_MITIGATIONS is already defined instead of having x86's menu depend on the common CPU_MITIGATIONS. This allows keeping a single point of contact for all of x86's mitigations, and it's not clear that other architectures *want* to allow disabling mitigations at compile-time.

Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS