VulnerabilityPublished 8 Nov 2024Updated 4 Nov 2025

CVE-2024-50182: Linux kernel · secretmem: disable memfd_secret() if arch cannot set direct map

Source GCVE Database

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Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.5 Medium.

Data as of 29 Oct 2026, 23:16 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

5.5Medium

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

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

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

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: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 8 Nov 2024
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: 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 29 Oct 2026.

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.
Weaponized: A Metasploit exploit module or Exploit-DB entry exists (Metasploit scanner modules do not count), or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity 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.

ghsa-9fq4-227m-74p5

What to do

AI-suggested

A fix is available that disables memfd_secret() on systems where the architecture cannot set the direct map, causing the syscall to return an error instead of silently failing. Users should update their Linux kernel to a version that includes this patch. Since most arm64 systems have the default configuration enabling direct map support, they are not affected. No additional mitigation is required beyond applying the official kernel update.

Description

CVE-2024-50182 addresses a Linux kernel vulnerability related to the memfd_secret() syscall on certain arm64 configurations. The issue arises when the architecture cannot set a direct map, causing memfd_secret() to appear to succeed but fail to remove memory from the direct map as intended. The fix disables memfd_secret() by returning an error (-ENOSYS) on systems where direct map setup is not possible, preventing silent failures. Most arm64 systems are unaffected due to default kernel configurations enabling direct map support.

Impact

The vulnerability causes memfd_secret() to silently fail to remove memory from the direct map on affected arm64 systems, potentially undermining the security guarantees of memfd_secret(). However, it does not lead to information disclosure or integrity loss directly. The impact is limited to the availability of the memfd_secret() feature on certain kernel configurations, which could affect security mechanisms relying on it. The CVSS score is 5.5 (medium), reflecting a local attack vector with limited impact on confidentiality and integrity but a high impact on availability.

Summary

This vulnerability involves the memfd_secret() syscall in the Linux kernel, which is intended to remove memory from the direct map for security purposes. On some arm64 systems where the architecture cannot set the direct map at 4k granularity, memfd_secret() previously succeeded without actually removing memory from the direct map, leading to a silent failure of the security feature. The patch changes memfd_secret() to return -ENOSYS on such systems, effectively disabling the syscall to avoid misleading success indications. This behavior aligns with the original design intent to disable memfd_secret() on unsupported architectures. The issue primarily affects arm64 systems with specific kernel configurations (CONFIG_RODATA_FULL_DEFAULT_ENABLED=n, CONFIG_DEBUG_PAGEALLOC=n, CONFIG_KFENCE=n), but since CONFIG_RODATA_FULL_DEFAULT_ENABLED defaults to 'y', most arm64 systems are not impacted.

References

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