CVE-2024-56655: Linux Kernel

Medium severity, CVSS 5.5. EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: netfilter: nf_tables: do not defer rule destruction via call_rcu nf_tables_chain_destroy can sleep, it can't be used from call_rcu callbacks. Moreover, nf_tables_rule_release() is only safe for error unwinding, while transaction mutex is held and the to-be-desroyed rule was not exposed to either dataplane or dumps, as it deactives+frees without the required synchronize_rcu() in-between. nft_rule_expr_deactivate() callbacks will change ->use counters of other chains/sets, see e.g. nft_lookup .deactivate callback, these must be serialized via transaction mutex. Also add a few lockdep asserts to make this more explicit. Calling synchronize_rcu() isn't ideal, but fixing this without is hard and way more intrusive. As-is, we can get: WARNING: .. net/netfilter/nf_tables_api.c:5515 nft_set_destroy+0x.. Workqueue: events nf_tables_trans_destroy_work RIP: 0010:nft_set_destroy+0x3fe/0x5c0 Call Trace: <TASK> nf_tables_trans_destroy_work+0x6b7/0xad0 process_one_work+0x64a/0xce0 worker_thread+0x613/0x10d0 In case the synchronize_rcu becomes an issue, we can explore alternatives. One way would be to allocate nft_trans_rule objects + one nft_trans_chain object, deactivate the rules + the chain and then defer the freeing to the nft destroy workqueue. We'd still need to keep the synchronize_rcu path as a fallback to handle -ENOMEM corner cases though.

Affected products

• Linux Linux Kernel: from 6.6.61, before 6.6.67 (fixed in 6.6.67); from 6.11.8, before 6.12.6 (fixed in 6.12.6); version 6.13 only

Published 2024-12-27. Last modified 2026-08-04.