Service interruption via off-by-one VPE cleanup
Published May 21, 2024 · Updated May 11, 2026
Resource leak in the Linux kernel 4.14 through 5.15-rc2 allows local users to exhaust VPE resources during GICv3 ITS allocation errors. The its_vpe_irq_domain_alloc error path calculates one too few initialized VPEs for cleanup when its_vpe_init fails, leaving one VPE allocated. Exploitation requires local low-privilege access and the affected GICv3 ITS virtualization path; repeated failures can exhaust resources and interrupt service.
Summary
What happened
Resource leak in the Linux kernel 4.14 through 5.15-rc2 allows local users to exhaust VPE resources during GICv3 ITS allocation errors. The its_vpe_irq_domain_alloc error path calculates one too few initialized VPEs for cleanup when its_vpe_init fails, leaving one VPE allocated. Exploitation requires local low-privilege access and the affected GICv3 ITS virtualization path; repeated failures can exhaust resources and interrupt service.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2021-47373
- Published
- May 21, 2024
- Updated
- May 11, 2026
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- CWE-193, T1499
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- May 21, 2024CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- May 11, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=4.14
- Affected versionversion=7d75bbb4bc1ad90386776459d37e4ddfe605671e <280bef512933b2dda01d681d8cbe499b98fc5bdd
- Affected versionversion=7d75bbb4bc1ad90386776459d37e4ddfe605671e <42d3711c23781045e7a5cd28536c774b9a66d20b
- Affected versionversion=7d75bbb4bc1ad90386776459d37e4ddfe605671e <568662e37f927e3dc3e475f3ff7cf4ab7719c5e7
- Affected versionversion=7d75bbb4bc1ad90386776459d37e4ddfe605671e <5701e8bff314c155e7afdc467b1e0389d86853d0
- Affected versionversion=7d75bbb4bc1ad90386776459d37e4ddfe605671e <7d39992d45acd6f2d6b2f62389c55b61fb3d486b
- Affected versionversion=7d75bbb4bc1ad90386776459d37e4ddfe605671e <e0c1c2e5da19685a20557a50f10c6aa4fa26aa84
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
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.
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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