CVE-2024-49881: Linux Kernel

Medium severity, CVSS 5.5. EPSS: 0.3% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ext4: update orig_path in ext4_find_extent() In ext4_find_extent(), if the path is not big enough, we free it and set *orig_path to NULL. But after reallocating and successfully initializing the path, we don't update *orig_path, in which case the caller gets a valid path but a NULL ppath, and this may cause a NULL pointer dereference or a path memory leak. For example: ext4_split_extent path = *ppath = 2000 ext4_find_extent if (depth > path[0].p_maxdepth) kfree(path = 2000); *orig_path = path = NULL; path = kcalloc() = 3000 ext4_split_extent_at(*ppath = NULL) path = *ppath; ex = path[depth].p_ext; // NULL pointer dereference! ================================================================== BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000010 CPU: 6 UID: 0 PID: 576 Comm: fsstress Not tainted 6.11.0-rc2-dirty #847 RIP: 0010:ext4_split_extent_at+0x6d/0x560 Call Trace: <TASK> ext4_split_extent.isra.0+0xcb/0x1b0 ext4_ext_convert_to_initialized+0x168/0x6c0 ext4_ext_handle_unwritten_extents+0x325/0x4d0 ext4_ext_map_blocks+0x520/0xdb0 ext4_map_blocks+0x2b0/0x690 ext4_iomap_begin+0x20e/0x2c0 [...] ================================================================== Therefore, *orig_path is updated when the extent lookup succeeds, so that the caller can safely use path or *ppath.

Affected products

• Linux Linux Kernel: from 3.18, before 5.10.227 (fixed in 5.10.227); from 5.11, before 5.15.168 (fixed in 5.15.168); from 5.16, before 6.1.113 (fixed in 6.1.113); from 6.2, before 6.6.55 (fixed in 6.6.55); from 6.7, before 6.10.14 (fixed in 6.10.14); from 6.11, before 6.11.3 (fixed in 6.11.3)

Published 2024-10-21. Last modified 2026-06-17.