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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.

CVE-2024-50182MEDIUM
Linux Linux — secretmem: disable memfd_secret() if arch cannot set direct map
  AV  AC  PR  UI  S  C  I  A   CVSS    EPSS   %ile   KEV
   L   L   L   N  U  N  N  H    5.5   .0023   14.4     —
AFFECTED
  Product  Versions                                    Fixed
  Linux    1507f51255c9ff07d75909a84e7c0d7f3c4b2f49 –  —
  Linux    5.14 –                                      5.15.169
TIMELINE
  Oct 21  Reserved by Linux
  Nov 8   Published (CNA: Linux)
  Aug 4   RESCORED — CVE-2024-50182 (Linux). CVSS 7.1 → 5.5 (NVD).
CNA: Linux · CVSS v3.1 · 6 references · NVD status: Modified

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: secretmem: disable memfd_secret() if arch cannot set direct map Return -ENOSYS from memfd_secret() syscall if !can_set_direct_map(). This is the case for example on some arm64 configurations, where marking 4k PTEs in the direct map not present can only be done if the direct map is set up at 4k granularity in the first place (as ARM's break-before-make semantics do not easily allow breaking apart large/gigantic pages). More precisely, on arm64 systems with !can_set_direct_map(), set_direct_map_invalid_noflush() is a no-op, however it returns success (0) instead of an error. This means that memfd_secret will seemingly "work" (e.g. syscall succeeds, you can mmap the fd and fault in pages), but it does not actually achieve its goal of removing its memory from the direct map. Note that with this patch, memfd_secret() will start erroring on systems where can_set_direct_map() returns false (arm64 with CONFIG_RODATA_FULL_DEFAULT_ENABLED=n, CONFIG_DEBUG_PAGEALLOC=n and CONFIG_KFENCE=n), but that still seems better than the current silent failure. Since CONFIG_RODATA_FULL_DEFAULT_ENABLED defaults to 'y', most arm64 systems actually have a working memfd_secret() and aren't be affected. From going through the iterations of the original memfd_secret patch series, it seems that disabling the syscall in these scenarios was the intended behavior [1] (preferred over having set_direct_map_invalid_noflush return an error as that would result in SIGBUSes at page-fault time), however the check for it got dropped between v16 [2] and v17 [3], when secretmem moved away from CMA allocations. [1]: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20201124164930.GK8537@kernel.org/ [2]: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20210121122723.3446-11-rppt@kernel.org/#t [3]: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20201125092208.12544-10-rppt@kernel.org/

Lifecycle

Complete event history — 3 events, chronological
DateEventDetail
October 21, 2024ReservedReserved by Linux
November 8, 2024PublishedPublished (CNA: Linux)
August 4, 2026RESCOREDRESCORED — CVE-2024-50182 (Linux). CVSS 7.1 → 5.5 (NVD).

Affected

Affected products and packages — 2 rows
VendorProduct / PackageEcosystemVersion introducedFixed
LinuxLinux1507f51255c9ff07d75909a84e7c0d7f3c4b2f49
LinuxLinux5.145.15.169

References (6)

Related

Authoritative record: CVE-2024-50182 at cve.org

Vendors: linux

About this page

This is a reference page, not a dated page of record. It assembles the complete lifecycle of CVE-2024-50182 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.