Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2024-56678)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2024-56678). Successful exploitation can lead to full system takeover. Mitigation: upgrade to 5.15.174, 6.1.120, 6.6.64, 6.11.11, 6.12.2 or later.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

powerpc/mm/fault: Fix kfence page fault reporting

copy_from_kernel_nofault() can be called when doing read of /proc/kcore.
/proc/kcore can have some unmapped kfence objects which when read via
copy_from_kernel_nofault() can cause page faults. Since *_nofault()
functions define their own fixup table for handling fault, use that
instead of asking kfence to handle such faults.

Hence we search the exception tables for the nip which generated the
fault. If there is an entry then we let the fixup table handler handle the
page fault by returning an error from within ___do_page_fault().

This can be easily triggered if someone tries to do dd from /proc/kcore.
eg. dd if=/proc/kcore of=/dev/null bs=1M

Some example false negatives:

===============================
BUG: KFENCE: invalid read in copy_from_kernel_nofault+0x9c/0x1a0
Invalid read at 0xc0000000fdff0000:
copy_from_kernel_nofault+0x9c/0x1a0
0xc00000000665f950
read_kcore_iter+0x57c/0xa04
proc_reg_read_iter+0xe4/0x16c
vfs_read+0x320/0x3ec
ksys_read+0x90/0x154
system_call_exception+0x120/0x310
system_call_vectored_common+0x15c/0x2ec

BUG: KFENCE: use-after-free read in copy_from_kernel_nofault+0x9c/0x1a0
Use-after-free read at 0xc0000000fe050000 (in kfence-#2):
copy_from_kernel_nofault+0x9c/0x1a0
0xc00000000665f950
read_kcore_iter+0x57c/0xa04
proc_reg_read_iter+0xe4/0x16c
vfs_read+0x320/0x3ec
ksys_read+0x90/0x…

Source: OSV.dev (Open Source Vulnerabilities) NVD OSV

Auto-generated summary

Assembled by SecPulse from the source data (CVSS, CWE, affected versions) using templates — no AI involved. Check the original description and references below for exact details.

A vulnerability tracked as CVE-2024-56678 has been found in Kernel.
Successful exploitation can lead to full system takeover.
What to do: upgrade Kernel to 5.15.174, 6.1.120, 6.6.64, 6.11.11, 6.12.2 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Kernel CVE-2024-56678" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2024-56678 (Kernel)
Attack vector: local / no user interaction
Patched: 5.15.174, 6.1.120, 6.6.64, 6.11.11, 6.12.2 — apply immediately
Plan: 1) Audit SBOM/dependencies, 2) Stage→prod upgrade, 3) Add WAF/proxy monitoring on affected endpoints, 4) Hunt IOCs in logs.
Refs: see the GHSA / vendor advisory / patched release linked on this page.

❓ What is the problem

A vulnerability (unclassified) exists in Kernel.

📍 Affected scope

Check the vendor advisory for the affected versions of Kernel.

🔥 Severity

Severity: ?. Successful exploitation can lead to full system takeover.

🔧 How to fix

Update to 5.15.174, 6.1.120, 6.6.64, 6.11.11, 6.12.2.

🛡️ Workaround

Until the patch is applied: disable the affected feature, apply WAF rules, or restrict access via network ACLs.

🔍 Detection

Search webserver/proxy logs for unusual request patterns matching this CVE's known IOCs. Run grep -r 'Kernel' . against your dependency files (package-lock.json, requirements.txt, go.sum) to find affected services.

Response actions

Concrete steps and command examples for SOC/SRE teams to execute in order

1
Identify exposure identify
```
grep -r 'Kernel' . | grep -v node_modules
```
リポジトリと本番環境の依存ファイル (package-lock.json / requirements.txt / go.sum / Gemfile.lock 等) で Kernel を grep し、稼働しているサービス・バージョンを把握する。
2
Apply patch patch
```
Upgrade Kernel to 5.15.174, 6.1.120, 6.6.64, 6.11.11, 6.12.2
```
ステージング環境で 5.15.174, 6.1.120, 6.6.64, 6.11.11, 6.12.2 に上げて回帰テスト → 本番反映。回帰テストはアプリの主要ハッピーパスを含めること。
3
Post-deployment verification verify
```
Confirm patched version is live in production
```
パッチ適用後、ステージングで PoC または同等の悪用パターンを再現して脆弱性が閉じたことを確認。本番ではアクセスログ・WAF でアラート再発が無いか継続監視。

Affected packages

Linux Kernel

[{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.13.0"},{"fixed":"5.15.174"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.16.0"},{"fixed":"6.1.120"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.2.0"},{"fixed":"6.6.64"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.7.0"},{"fixed":"6.11.11"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.12.0"},{"fixed":"6.12.2"}]}]

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

BellSoft Alpaquita BELL-CVE-2024-56678 linux-lts Fixed in: 6.1.120-r0
Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2024-56678 linux Fixed in: 6.1.123-1
Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2024-56678 linux-hwe-edge