CVE-2024-50194

MEDIUM
Published Nov 8, 2024 Modified Nov 3, 2025

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: arm64: probes: Fix uprobes for big-endian kernels The arm64 uprobes code is broken for big-endian kernels as it doesn't convert the in-memory instruction encoding (which is always little-endian) into the kernel's native endianness before analyzing and simulating instructions. This may result in a few distinct problems: * The kernel may may erroneously reject probing an instruction which can safely be probed. * The kernel may erroneously erroneously permit stepping an instruction out-of-line when that instruction cannot be stepped out-of-line safely. * The kernel may erroneously simulate instruction incorrectly dur to interpretting the byte-swapped encoding. The endianness mismatch isn't caught by the compiler or sparse because: * The arch_uprobe::{insn,ixol} fields are encoded as arrays of u8, so the compiler and sparse have no idea these contain a little-endian 32-bit value. The core uprobes code populates these with a memcpy() which similarly does not handle endianness. * While the uprobe_opcode_t type is an alias for __le32, both arch_uprobe_analyze_insn() and arch_uprobe_skip_sstep() cast from u8[] to the similarly-named probe_opcode_t, which is an alias for u32. Hence there is no endianness conversion warning. Fix this by changing the arch_uprobe::{insn,ixol} fields to __le32 and adding the appropriate __le32_to_cpu() conversions prior to consuming the instruction encoding. The core uprobes copies these fields as opaque ranges of bytes, and so is unaffected by this change. At the same time, remove MAX_UINSN_BYTES and consistently use AARCH64_INSN_SIZE for clarity. Tested with the following: | #include <stdio.h> | #include <stdbool.h> | | #define noinline __attribute__((noinline)) | | static noinline void *adrp_self(void) | { | void *addr; | | asm volatile( | " adrp %x0, adrp_self\n" | " add %x0, %x0, :lo12:adrp_self\n" | : "=r" (addr)); | } | | | int main(int argc, char *argv) | { | void *ptr = adrp_self(); | bool equal = (ptr == adrp_self); | | printf("adrp_self => %p\n" | "adrp_self() => %p\n" | "%s\n", | adrp_self, ptr, equal ? "EQUAL" : "NOT EQUAL"); | | return 0; | } .... where the adrp_self() function was compiled to: | 00000000004007e0 <adrp_self>: | 4007e0: 90000000 adrp x0, 400000 <__ehdr_start> | 4007e4: 911f8000 add x0, x0, #0x7e0 | 4007e8: d65f03c0 ret Before this patch, the ADRP is not recognized, and is assumed to be steppable, resulting in corruption of the result: | # ./adrp-self | adrp_self => 0x4007e0 | adrp_self() => 0x4007e0 | EQUAL | # echo 'p /root/adrp-self:0x007e0' > /sys/kernel/tracing/uprobe_events | # echo 1 > /sys/kernel/tracing/events/uprobes/enable | # ./adrp-self | adrp_self => 0x4007e0 | adrp_self() => 0xffffffffff7e0 | NOT EQUAL After this patch, the ADRP is correctly recognized and simulated: | # ./adrp-self | adrp_self => 0x4007e0 | adrp_self() => 0x4007e0 | EQUAL | # | # echo 'p /root/adrp-self:0x007e0' > /sys/kernel/tracing/uprobe_events | # echo 1 > /sys/kernel/tracing/events/uprobes/enable | # ./adrp-self | adrp_self => 0x4007e0 | adrp_self() => 0x4007e0 | EQUAL

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CVSS v3.1 Score

5.5
MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected Products

Vendor Product
linux linux_kernel
linux linux_kernel
linux linux_kernel
linux linux_kernel
linux linux_kernel
linux linux_kernel
linux linux_kernel
linux linux_kernel
linux linux_kernel
linux linux_kernel

References

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2024-50194? +
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: arm64: probes: Fix uprobes for big-endian kernels The arm64 uprobes code is broken for big-endian kernels as it doesn't convert the in-memory instruction encoding (which is always little-endian) into the kernel's native endianness before analyzing and simulating instructions. This may result in a few distinct problems: * The kernel may may erroneously reject probing an instruction which can safely be probed. * The kernel may erroneously erroneously permit stepping an instruction out-of-line when that instruction cannot be stepped out-of-line safely. * The kernel may erroneously simulate instruction incorrectly dur to interpretting the byte-swapped encoding. The endianness mismatch isn't caught by the compiler or sparse because: * The arch_uprobe::{insn,ixol} fields are encoded as arrays of u8, so the compiler and sparse have no idea these contain a little-endian 32-bit value. The core uprobes code populates these with a memcpy() which similarly does not handle endianness. * While the uprobe_opcode_t type is an alias for __le32, both arch_uprobe_analyze_insn() and arch_uprobe_skip_sstep() cast from u8[] to the similarly-named probe_opcode_t, which is an alias for u32. Hence there is no endianness conversion warning. Fix this by changing the arch_uprobe::{insn,ixol} fields to __le32 and adding the appropriate __le32_to_cpu() conversions prior to consuming the instruction encoding. The core uprobes copies these fields as opaque ranges of bytes, and so is unaffected by this change. At the same time, remove MAX_UINSN_BYTES and consistently use AARCH64_INSN_SIZE for clarity. Tested with the following: | #include <stdio.h> | #include <stdbool.h> | | #define noinline __attribute__((noinline)) | | static noinline void *adrp_self(void) | { | void *addr; | | asm volatile( | " adrp %x0, adrp_self\n" | " add %x0, %x0, :lo12:adrp_self\n" | : "=r" (addr)); | } | | | int main(int argc, char *argv) | { | void *ptr = adrp_self(); | bool equal = (ptr == adrp_self); | | printf("adrp_self => %p\n" | "adrp_self() => %p\n" | "%s\n", | adrp_self, ptr, equal ? "EQUAL" : "NOT EQUAL"); | | return 0; | } .... where the adrp_self() function was compiled to: | 00000000004007e0 <adrp_self>: | 4007e0: 90000000 adrp x0, 400000 <__ehdr_start> | 4007e4: 911f8000 add x0, x0, #0x7e0 | 4007e8: d65f03c0 ret Before this patch, the ADRP is not recognized, and is assumed to be steppable, resulting in corruption of the result: | # ./adrp-self | adrp_self => 0x4007e0 | adrp_self() => 0x4007e0 | EQUAL | # echo 'p /root/adrp-self:0x007e0' > /sys/kernel/tracing/uprobe_events | # echo 1 > /sys/kernel/tracing/events/uprobes/enable | # ./adrp-self | adrp_self => 0x4007e0 | adrp_self() => 0xffffffffff7e0 | NOT EQUAL After this patch, the ADRP is correctly recognized and simulated: | # ./adrp-self | adrp_self => 0x4007e0 | adrp_self() => 0x4007e0 | EQUAL | # | # echo 'p /root/adrp-self:0x007e0' > /sys/kernel/tracing/uprobe_events | # echo 1 > /sys/kernel/tracing/events/uprobes/enable | # ./adrp-self | adrp_self => 0x4007e0 | adrp_self() => 0x4007e0 | EQUAL It has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 5.5 (MEDIUM).
How severe is CVE-2024-50194? +
CVE-2024-50194 has a CVSS v3.1 score of 5.5 out of 10, rated MEDIUM. This is a medium-severity vulnerability that should be remediated as part of regular maintenance.
What products are affected by CVE-2024-50194? +
CVE-2024-50194 affects products from linux, specifically: linux_kernel. Check the affected products table above for specific version ranges.
How do I check if I'm vulnerable to CVE-2024-50194? +
You can use Secably's free Website Scanner to check your website for known vulnerabilities. For infrastructure scanning, use the Port Scanner to identify exposed services that may be affected. Check the vendor advisories linked above for specific patch and version information.

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