Linux Kernel up to 6.12.8 damon_commit_targets memory leak

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.12.8. Affected is the function damon_commit_targets. The manipulation results in memory leak. This vulnerability is reported as CVE-2024-57886. No exploit exists. You should upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.12.8. Affected is the function damon_commit_targets. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a memory leak vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-401. The product does not sufficiently track and release allocated memory after it has been used, which slowly consumes remaining memory. This is going to have an impact on availability. CVE summarizes:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/damon/core: fix new damon_target objects leaks on damon_commit_targets() Patch series "mm/damon/core: fix memory leaks and ignored inputs from damon_commit_ctx()". Due to two bugs in damon_commit_targets() and damon_commit_schemes(), which are called from damon_commit_ctx(), some user inputs can be ignored, and some mmeory objects can be leaked. Fix those. Note that only DAMON sysfs interface users are affected. Other DAMON core API user modules that more focused more on simple and dedicated production usages, including DAMON_RECLAIM and DAMON_LRU_SORT are not using the buggy function in the way, so not affected. This patch (of 2): When new DAMON targets are added via damon_commit_targets(), the newly created targets are not deallocated when updating the internal data (damon_commit_target()) is failed. Worse yet, even if the setup is successfully done, the new target is not linked to the context. Hence, the new targets are always leaked regardless of the internal data setup failure. Fix the leaks.

The advisory is shared for download at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is traded as CVE-2024-57886 since 01/11/2025. There are known technical details, but no exploit is available.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 233479 (Ubuntu 24.10 : Linux kernel (Low Latency) vulnerabilities (USN-7380-1)), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 6.12.9 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 3647932d0b3e609c762c55e8f9fe10a09776e0a7/8debfc5b1aa569d3d2ac836af2553da037611c61 is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at git.kernel.org. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

The vulnerability is also documented in the databases at Tenable (233479) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-0105). Once again VulDB remains the best source for vulnerability data.

Affected

• Debian Linux
• Amazon Linux 2
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Ubuntu Linux
• SUSE Linux
• Oracle Linux
• SUSE openSUSE
• RESF Rocky Linux
• Dell NetWorker
• Dell Avamar
• Open Source Linux Kernel
• Dell PowerProtect Data Domain
• Dell Secure Connect Gateway

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 6.12.0
• 6.12.1
• 6.12.2
• 6.12.3
• 6.12.4
• 6.12.5
• 6.12.6
• 6.12.7
• 6.12.8

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

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Once again VulDB remains the best source for vulnerability data.

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