Linux Kernel: Race Condition (CVE-2024-53169)
Published Last modified Sources: SUSE, CVE.org, EUVD
What is affected, what to do
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nvme-fabrics: fix kernel crash while shutting down controller The nvme keep-alive operation, which executes at a periodic interval, could potentially sneak in while shutting down a fabric controller. This may lead to a race between the fabric controller admin queue destroy code path (invoked while shutting down controller) and hw/hctx queue dispatcher called from the nvme keep-alive async request queuing operation.
The available sources name no fixed version. Check the vendor guidance in the references below.
Conflicting version data — version display is hidden until the data is resolved.
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Metrics
9.8
Priority
XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.
Source: Vendor (CNA), CVSS v3
9.8
CVSS v3
Severity Critical on the scale from 0 to 10.
Source: SUSE, CVE.org, EUVD
0.5 %
EPSS score
Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.
Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 45.7
Show all metrics
- Severity
- Critical
Priority (0–325)
The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?
Read in glossary- 72.95 Methodology
Exploit maturity
An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.
Read in glossary- no public PoC known
XIEM Effective CVSS
XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.
Read in glossary- 9.8 Methodology
CVSS v3
CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.
Read in glossary- 9.8
EPSS score
The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.
Read in glossary- 0.5 %
- Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.
EPSS percentile
The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.
Read in glossary- 45.7
- High — this CVE ranks above the median of all CVEs scored today (rank ≥ 36%).
KEV status
The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.
Read in glossary- —
- Published
- CISA assessment (SSVC)
- Exploitation: none known · not automatable · Technical impact: partial
- Source: CISA Vulnrichment, as of 1 October 2025
Detection rules
No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.
Classification under NIS2 and CRA
Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.
NIS2
NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.
Read in glossary- High technical severity: assess and remediate the vulnerability in vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2 and document the decision.
CRA
The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.
Read in glossary- From 11.12.2027, Annex I Part II CRA requires manufacturers of affected products with digital elements to handle vulnerabilities without delay and provide security updates.
ISO/IEC 27001
ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.
Read in glossary- Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nvme-fabrics: fix kernel crash while shutting down controller The nvme keep-alive operation, which executes at a periodic interval, could potentially sneak in while shutting down a fabric controller. This may lead to a race between the fabric controller admin queue destroy code path (invoked while shutting down controller) and hw/hctx queue dispatcher called from the nvme keep-alive async request queuing operation. This race could lead to the kernel crash shown below: Call Trace: autoremove_wake_function+0x0/0xbc (unreliable) __blk_mq_sched_dispatch_requests+0x114/0x24c blk_mq_sched_dispatch_requests+0x44/0x84 blk_mq_run_hw_queue+0x140/0x220 nvme_keep_alive_work+0xc8/0x19c [nvme_core] process_one_work+0x200/0x4e0 worker_thread+0x340/0x504 kthread+0x138/0x140 start_kernel_thread+0x14/0x18 While shutting down fabric controller, if nvme keep-alive request sneaks in then it would be flushed off. The nvme_keep_alive_end_io function is then invoked to handle the end of the keep-alive operation which decrements the admin->q_usage_counter and assuming this is the last/only request in the admin queue then the admin->q_usage_counter becomes zero. If that happens then blk-mq destroy queue operation (blk_mq_destroy_ queue()) which could be potentially running simultaneously on another cpu (as this is the controller shutdown code path) would forward progress and deletes the admin queue. So, now from this point onward we are not supposed to access the admin queue resources. However the issue here's that the nvme keep-alive thread running hw/hctx queue dispatch operation hasn't yet finished its work and so it could still potentially access the admin queue resource while the admin queue had been already deleted and that causes the above crash. The above kernel crash is regression caused due to changes implemented in commit a54a93d0e359 ("nvme: move stopping keep-alive into nvme_uninit_ctrl()"). Ideally we should stop keep-alive before destroyin g the admin queue and freeing the admin tagset so that it wouldn't sneak in during the shutdown operation. However we removed the keep alive stop operation from the beginning of the controller shutdown code path in commit a54a93d0e359 ("nvme: move stopping keep-alive into nvme_uninit_ctrl()") and added it under nvme_uninit_ctrl() which executes very late in the shutdown code path after the admin queue is destroyed and its tagset is removed. So this change created the possibility of keep-alive sneaking in and interfering with the shutdown operation and causing observed kernel crash. To fix the observed crash, we decided to move nvme_stop_keep_alive() from nvme_uninit_ctrl() to nvme_remove_admin_tag_set(). This change would ensure that we don't forward progress and delete the admin queue until the keep- alive operation is finished (if it's in-flight) or cancelled and that would help contain the race condition explained above and hence avoid the crash. Moving nvme_stop_keep_alive() to nvme_remove_admin_tag_set() instead of adding nvme_stop_keep_alive() to the beginning of the controller shutdown code path in nvme_stop_ctrl(), as was the case earlier before commit a54a93d0e359 ("nvme: move stopping keep-alive into nvme_uninit_ctrl()"), would help save one callsite of nvme_stop_keep_alive().
Source: suse_csaf, cvelistv5, NVD (NIST), CVE.org (MITRE), ENISA EUVD
Affected products
The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.
| Affected versions | Fixed in | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Linux | Linux |
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Vendors and products
Affected operating systems
| Linux | linux | linux_kernel | 6.11 |
| Linux | linux | linux_kernel | — |
References & sources
- git.kernel.orgstable/c/30794f4952decb2ec8efa42f704cac5304499a41
- git.kernel.orgstable/c/5416b76a8156c1b8491f78f8a728f422104bb919
- git.kernel.orgstable/c/e9869c85c81168a1275f909d5972a3fc435304be
Changes to this CVE
Who changed this CVE and when: NVD (analysis, affected products, CVSS), the CVE publisher (CNA) and additional providers such as CISA (ADP).
Record modifiedLinux
CVSS V3.1: AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Show the original change
Individual changes of this event as published by NVD Type Action Before After CVSS added —AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HSource identifier: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
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<a href="https://intel.neosec.eu/en/cve/CVE-2024-53169"><img src="https://intel.neosec.eu/badge/cve/CVE-2024-53169.svg?lang=en" alt="CVE-2024-53169 – NEOSEC Intel" height="20"></a>