CVE Catalog

CVE-2024-50017

MediumCVSS 5.5
Published: Updated: Translated: NVD NIST

Exploitation Probability (EPSS)

Low risk
0.22%

13th percentile - higher than 13% of all known CVEs

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the x86/mm/ident_map code's ident_pud_init() uses GB pages for identity maps, potentially including larger address ranges than requested, including BIOS-reserved areas. This can allow processor speculation into reserved regions, causing system halts on UV systems.

Risk Assessment

The vulnerability may allow speculative access to reserved memory areas, potentially leading to system crashes or halts on certain systems.

Recommendation

Apply the Linux kernel update containing the fix for CVE-2024-50017, which restricts GB page usage to full requests.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

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Original NVD description (English source)

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/mm/ident_map: Use gbpages only where full GB page should be mapped. When ident_pud_init() uses only GB pages to create identity maps, large ranges of addresses not actually requested can be included in the resulting table; a 4K request will map a full GB. This can include a lot of extra address space past that requested, including areas marked reserved by the BIOS. That allows processor speculation into reserved regions, that on UV systems can cause system halts. Only use GB pages when map creation requests include the full GB page of space. Fall back to using smaller 2M pages when only portions of a GB page are included in the request. No attempt is made to coalesce mapping requests. If a request requires a map entry at the 2M (pmd) level, subsequent mapping requests within the same 1G region will also be at the pmd level, even if adjacent or overlapping such requests could have been combined to map a full GB page. Existing usage starts with larger regions and then adds smaller regions, so this should not have any great consequence.

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