Local denial of service via RX queue leak
Published Feb 28, 2024 · Updated May 23, 2026
Resource leak in Linux kernel virtio-vsock allows local users to exhaust kernel memory by closing sockets with queued receive packets. Scheduled socket teardown removes the socket from the af_vsock lists without first draining and freeing packets retained on its RX queue. Repeated triggering requires local code execution and an available virtio-vsock transport and can deplete memory until the system becomes unavailable.
Summary
What happened
Resource leak in Linux kernel virtio-vsock allows local users to exhaust kernel memory by closing sockets with queued receive packets. Scheduled socket teardown removes the socket from the af_vsock lists without first draining and freeing packets retained on its RX queue. Repeated triggering requires local code execution and an available virtio-vsock transport and can deplete memory until the system becomes unavailable.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2021-47024
- Published
- Feb 28, 2024
- Updated
- May 23, 2026
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- CWE-401, T1499.004
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Feb 28, 2024CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- May 23, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
Compare your product and version with the public record. A matching version still requires validation against your environment.
Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=4.14.122 <4.15
- Affected versionversion=4.19.46 <4.20
- Affected versionversion=4.9.179 <4.10
- Affected versionversion=4af8a327aeba102aaa9b78f3451f725bc590b237
- Affected versionversion=4e539fa2dec4db3405e47002f2878aa4a99eb68b
- Affected versionversion=4ea082cd3c400cd5bb36a7beb7e441bf3e29350d
- Affected versionversion=5.0.19 <5.1
- Affected versionversion=5.1.5 <5.2
- Affected versionversion=51adb8ebe8c1d80528fc2ea863cfea9d32d2c52b
- Affected versionversion=5.2
- Affected versionversion=7d29c9ad0ed525c1b10e29cfca4fb1eece1e93fb
- Affected versionversion=ac03046ece2b158ebd204dfc4896fd9f39f0e6c8 <27691665145e74a45034a9dccf1150cf1894763a
- Affected versionversion=ac03046ece2b158ebd204dfc4896fd9f39f0e6c8 <37c38674ef2f8d7e8629e5d433c37d6c1273d16b
- Affected versionversion=ac03046ece2b158ebd204dfc4896fd9f39f0e6c8 <8432b8114957235f42e070a16118a7f750de9d39
- Affected versionversion=ac03046ece2b158ebd204dfc4896fd9f39f0e6c8 <b605673b523fe33abeafb2136759bcbc9c1e6ebf
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
- syzbot virtio-vsock memory-leak reproducerproof of concept · demonstrated
Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.
Technologies
Your stack
See the directory against your own environment.
Your stack
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