Local system crash via dangling receive-buffer pointer
Published Jul 12, 2024 · Updated Aug 5, 2026
Use-after-free in the Linux kernel gve receive path allows local users to crash an affected system during packet-buffer processing. The gve_rx_free_skb function frees an skb without clearing napi->skb, so a later napi_get_frags call can return the dangling pointer. The affected path requires the gve driver and low-privileged local access; the grounded impact is a system crash without data disclosure or modification.
Summary
What happened
Use-after-free in the Linux kernel gve receive path allows local users to crash an affected system during packet-buffer processing. The gve_rx_free_skb function frees an skb without clearing napi->skb, so a later napi_get_frags call can return the dangling pointer. The affected path requires the gve driver and low-privileged local access; the grounded impact is a system crash without data disclosure or modification.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2024-40937
- Published
- Jul 12, 2024
- Updated
- Aug 5, 2026
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- Unavailable
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Jul 12, 2024CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Aug 5, 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=5.14
- Affected versionversion=9b8dd5e5ea48bbb7532d20c4093a79d8283e4029 <2ce5341c36993b776012601921d7688693f8c037
- Affected versionversion=9b8dd5e5ea48bbb7532d20c4093a79d8283e4029 <6f4d93b78ade0a4c2cafd587f7b429ce95abb02e
- Affected versionversion=9b8dd5e5ea48bbb7532d20c4093a79d8283e4029 <75afd8724739ee5ed8165acde5f6ac3988b485cc
- Affected versionversion=9b8dd5e5ea48bbb7532d20c4093a79d8283e4029 <a68184d5b420ea4fc7e6b7ceb52bbc66f90d3c50
- Affected versionversion=9b8dd5e5ea48bbb7532d20c4093a79d8283e4029 <d221284991118c0ab16480b53baecd857c0bc442
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
No sourced classifications are available.
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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