Linux Kernel up to 6.12.12/6.13.1 memcg iteration

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability identified as problematic has been detected in Linux Kernel up to 6.12.12/6.13.1. This affects an unknown part of the component memcg. The manipulation leads to iteration. This vulnerability is documented as CVE-2024-57977. There is not any exploit available. You should upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.12.12/6.13.1 and classified as problematic. This issue affects some unknown functionality of the component memcg. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a iteration vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-834. The product performs an iteration or loop without sufficiently limiting the number of times that the loop is executed. Impacted is availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: memcg: fix soft lockup in the OOM process A soft lockup issue was found in the product with about 56,000 tasks were in the OOM cgroup, it was traversing them when the soft lockup was triggered. watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#2 stuck for 23s! [VM Thread:1503066] CPU: 2 PID: 1503066 Comm: VM Thread Kdump: loaded Tainted: G Hardware name: Huawei Cloud OpenStack Nova, BIOS RIP: 0010:console_unlock+0x343/0x540 RSP: 0000:ffffb751447db9a0 EFLAGS: 00000247 ORIG_RAX: ffffffffffffff13 RAX: 0000000000000001 RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: 00000000ffffffff RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000004 RDI: 0000000000000247 RBP: ffffffffafc71f90 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000040 R10: 0000000000000080 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: ffffffffafc74bd0 R13: ffffffffaf60a220 R14: 0000000000000247 R15: 0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 00007f2fe6ad91f0 CR3: 00000004b2076003 CR4: 0000000000360ee0 DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 Call Trace: vprintk_emit+0x193/0x280 printk+0x52/0x6e dump_task+0x114/0x130 mem_cgroup_scan_tasks+0x76/0x100 dump_header+0x1fe/0x210 oom_kill_process+0xd1/0x100 out_of_memory+0x125/0x570 mem_cgroup_out_of_memory+0xb5/0xd0 try_charge+0x720/0x770 mem_cgroup_try_charge+0x86/0x180 mem_cgroup_try_charge_delay+0x1c/0x40 do_anonymous_page+0xb5/0x390 handle_mm_fault+0xc4/0x1f0 This is because thousands of processes are in the OOM cgroup, it takes a long time to traverse all of them. As a result, this lead to soft lockup in the OOM process. To fix this issue, call 'cond_resched' in the 'mem_cgroup_scan_tasks' function per 1000 iterations. For global OOM, call 'touch_softlockup_watchdog' per 1000 iterations to avoid this issue.

The advisory is shared at git.kernel.org. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2024-57977 since 02/27/2025. The exploitation is known to be difficult. Neither technical details nor an exploit are publicly available.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 234309 (Debian dsa-5900 : affs-modules-6.1.0-28-4kc-malta-di - security update), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 6.12.13, 6.13.2 or 6.14-rc1 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch c3a3741db8c1202aa959c77df3a4c361612d1eb1/46576834291869457d4772bb7df72d7c2bb3d57f/ade81479c7dda1ce3eedb215c78bc615bbd04f06 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 (234309), EUVD (EUVD-2025-5274) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-0453). Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

Affected

• Google Container-Optimized OS
• Debian Linux
• Amazon Linux 2
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Ubuntu Linux
• SUSE Linux
• Oracle Linux
• Siemens SIMATIC S7
• RESF Rocky Linux
• Dell NetWorker
• Dell Avamar
• Red Hat OpenShift
• IBM QRadar SIEM
• SolarWinds Security Event Manager
• Dell PowerProtect Data Domain
• Open Source Linux Kernel
• IBM DataPower Gateway
• Dell Secure Connect Gateway
• Dell PowerScale OneFS
• Dell ECS

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
• 6.12.9
• 6.12.10
• 6.12.11
• 6.12.12
• 6.13.0
• 6.13.1

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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Entryinfo

Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

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