Reference page — cumulative record through Wednesday, August 19, 2026 UTC. Reference pages update as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record.
Linux Linux — l2tp: prevent possible tunnel refcount underflow
AV AC PR UI S C I A CVSS EPSS %ile KEV
L L L N U N N H 5.5 .0022 13.0 —
AFFECTED
Product Versions Fixed
Linux 3953ae7b218df4d1e544b98a393666f9ae58a78c – —
Linux 4.15 – 6.11.3
TIMELINE
Oct 21 Reserved by Linux
Oct 21 Published (CNA: Linux)
Aug 4 RESCORED — CVE-2024-49940 (Linux). CVSS 7.8 → 5.5 (NVD).
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
l2tp: prevent possible tunnel refcount underflow
When a session is created, it sets a backpointer to its tunnel. When
the session refcount drops to 0, l2tp_session_free drops the tunnel
refcount if session->tunnel is non-NULL. However, session->tunnel is
set in l2tp_session_create, before the tunnel refcount is incremented
by l2tp_session_register, which leaves a small window where
session->tunnel is non-NULL when the tunnel refcount hasn't been
bumped.
Moving the assignment to l2tp_session_register is trivial but
l2tp_session_create calls l2tp_session_set_header_len which uses
session->tunnel to get the tunnel's encap. Add an encap arg to
l2tp_session_set_header_len to avoid using session->tunnel.
If l2tpv3 sessions have colliding IDs, it is possible for
l2tp_v3_session_get to race with l2tp_session_register and fetch a
session which doesn't yet have session->tunnel set. Add a check for
this case.
Lifecycle
Complete event history — 3 events, chronological
| Date | Event | Detail |
| October 21, 2024 | Reserved | Reserved by Linux |
| October 21, 2024 | Published | Published (CNA: Linux) |
| August 4, 2026 | RESCORED | RESCORED — CVE-2024-49940 (Linux). CVSS 7.8 → 5.5 (NVD). |
Affected
Affected products and packages — 2 rows
| Vendor | Product / Package | Ecosystem | Version introduced | Fixed |
| Linux | Linux | — | 3953ae7b218df4d1e544b98a393666f9ae58a78c | — |
| Linux | Linux | — | 4.15 | 6.11.3 |
About this page
This is a reference page, not a dated page of record. It assembles the complete lifecycle of CVE-2024-49940 from the CVE Program record, NVD enrichment, the CISA KEV catalog, EPSS, and OSV advisories. The box score's numbers (CVSS, EPSS, KEV status) are current as of Wednesday, August 19, 2026 UTC and are re-derived as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record. The authoritative source for this identifier is cve.org.