CVE-2024-1048VulnerabilityPublished 6 Feb 2024Updated 20 Nov 2025

CVE-2024-1048: Incomplete Cleanup

Source CVE Database V5

Mentioned vulnerabilities

CVE-2019-14865

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 3.3 Low.

Data as of 25 Oct 2026, 19:02 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

3.3Low

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 18% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: Low

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable component is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities. Either: the attacker exploits the vulnerability by accessing the target system locally (e.g., keyboard, console), or remotely (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., tricking a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: Low: Performance is reduced or there are interruptions in resource availability. Even if repeated exploitation of the vulnerability is possible, the attacker does not have the ability to completely deny service to legitimate users. The resources in the impacted component are either partially available all of the time, or fully available only some of the time, but overall there is no direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 6 Feb 2024
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 2026-10-25.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2024-1048, organizations should ensure that grub2-set-bootflag processes are allowed to complete without interruption, avoiding forced termination or system shutdowns during its execution. Implement monitoring scripts to detect and clean up orphaned temporary files created by grub2-set-bootflag, preventing filesystem resource exhaustion. System administrators should regularly check filesystem inode and disk usage, especially on partitions containing grubenv files. Applying any available patches or updates from Linux distribution vendors addressing this issue is recommended once released. Additionally, restricting local user privileges to only trusted administrators reduces the risk of exploitation. In automated environments, incorporate error handling and retries to minimize incomplete executions of grub2-set-bootflag. Finally, maintaining robust backup and recovery procedures ensures rapid restoration if filesystem exhaustion occurs.

Description

A flaw was found in the grub2-set-bootflag utility of grub2. After the fix of CVE-2019-14865, grub2-set-bootflag will create a temporary file with the new grubenv content and rename it to the original grubenv file. If the program is killed before the rename operation, the temporary file will not be removed and may fill the filesystem when invoked multiple times, resulting in a filesystem out of free inodes or blocks.

Impact

The primary impact of CVE-2024-1048 is on system availability due to potential exhaustion of filesystem resources (inodes or disk blocks) caused by orphaned temporary files. This can lead to denial of service conditions where the system cannot create new files or perform disk write operations, potentially affecting system stability and uptime. Organizations with automated processes that frequently update boot flags or invoke grub2-set-bootflag are at higher risk. While the vulnerability does not affect confidentiality or integrity, the availability impact can disrupt critical services, especially on servers and embedded systems relying on grub2 for boot management. Recovery from such a condition may require manual cleanup or system reboot, impacting operational continuity. Since exploitation requires local privileges, the risk is somewhat mitigated in environments with strict access controls, but insider threats or compromised accounts could leverage this flaw to degrade system availability.

References

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