Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2024-36888

medium Nessus Plugin ID 245982

Synopsis

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed with a vulnerability that the vendor indicates will not be patched.

Description

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

- In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: workqueue: Fix selection of wake_cpu in kick_pool() With cpu_possible_mask=0-63 and cpu_online_mask=0-7 the following kernel oops was observed:
smp: Bringing up secondary CPUs ... smp: Brought up 1 node, 8 CPUs Unable to handle kernel pointer dereference in virtual kernel address space Failing address: 0000000000000000 TEID: 0000000000000803 [..] Call Trace: arch_vcpu_is_preempted+0x12/0x80 select_idle_sibling+0x42/0x560 select_task_rq_fair+0x29a/0x3b0 try_to_wake_up+0x38e/0x6e0 kick_pool+0xa4/0x198
__queue_work.part.0+0x2bc/0x3a8 call_timer_fn+0x36/0x160 __run_timers+0x1e2/0x328
__run_timer_base+0x5a/0x88 run_timer_softirq+0x40/0x78 __do_softirq+0x118/0x388 irq_exit_rcu+0xc0/0xd8 do_ext_irq+0xae/0x168 ext_int_handler+0xbe/0xf0 psw_idle_exit+0x0/0xc default_idle_call+0x3c/0x110 do_idle+0xd4/0x158 cpu_startup_entry+0x40/0x48 rest_init+0xc6/0xc8 start_kernel+0x3c4/0x5e0 startup_continue+0x3c/0x50 The crash is caused by calling arch_vcpu_is_preempted() for an offline CPU. To avoid this, select the cpu with cpumask_any_and_distribute() to mask __pod_cpumask with cpu_online_mask.
In case no cpu is left in the pool, skip the assignment. tj: This doesn't fully fix the bug as CPUs can still go down between picking the target CPU and the wake call. Fixing that likely requires adding cpu_online() test to either the sched or s390 arch code. However, regardless of how that is fixed, workqueue shouldn't be picking a CPU which isn't online as that would result in unpredictable and worse behavior. (CVE-2024-36888)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

Solution

There is no known solution at this time.

See Also

https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2024-36888

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 245982

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2024_36888.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 8/8/2025

Updated: 8/8/2025

Supported Sensors: Frictionless Assessment AWS, Frictionless Assessment Azure, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Nessus Agent, Agentless Assessment, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 4.4

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 4.9

Temporal Score: 3.6

Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2024-36888

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 6.2

Temporal Score: 5.4

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.19, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-oracle-5.0, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-oracle-5.13, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.2, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-gcp-5.11, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-hwe, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-intel-5.13, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:16.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-oracle-5.3, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-hwe-edge, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:22.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-gke-5.15, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-oem-5.17, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-gcp, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-gcp-5.19, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-azure-5.19, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-riscv-5.11, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-riscv, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-gke, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-riscv-5.8, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-starfive-5.19, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-gcp-5.3, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-azure, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-aws-6.2, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:18.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-gkeop-5.4, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-oem, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-hwe-6.2, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-hwe-5.11, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-allwinner-5.19, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-aws-5.19, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-aws-5.13, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-aws-5.8, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-nvidia-6.2, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-aws-5.0, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-oem-5.13, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-aws-5.11, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-aws-5.3, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-azure-edge, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-azure-fde, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-oem-6.0, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-azure-5.3, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-gcp-6.2, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-azure-6.2, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-azure-5.11, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-oem-5.10, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-azure-5.8, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-hwe-5.19, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-raspi2, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-gke-5.4, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-intel-iot-realtime, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-gke-4.15, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-oracle-5.8, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-hwe-5.13, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-riscv-5.19, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-starfive-6.2, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-gcp-5.8, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-oem-5.6, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-hwe-5.8, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-gcp-5.13, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-oracle-5.11, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-realtime, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-oem-6.1, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-azure-5.13, cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:20.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-oem-5.14, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-azure-fde-5.19, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:linux-azure-fde-6.2

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/cpu, global_settings/vendor_unpatched, Host/OS/identifier

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Vulnerability Publication Date: 5/30/2024

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2024-36888