Skip to content
Fencer Intel
high 7.8

CVE-2024-56655 json

netfilter: nf_tables: do not defer rule destruction via call_rcu

published last yr. modified 3mo ago also EUVD-2024-53303

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 13%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.6.67, 6.12, 6.12.6, 6.13
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.12.6-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2024-56655

  • linux-hwe-6.11 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.11.0-21.21~24.04.1
  • linux-oem-6.11 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.11.0-1017.17

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2024-56655

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel Azure Linux 3.0 6.6.76.1-1

azure linux advisories AZL-55300

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

Is CVE-2024-56655 in your stack? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

Check with Fencer

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2024-56655 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: netfilter: nf_tables: do not defer rule destruction via call_rcu

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

0.23% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 13% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.