CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2021-47561 — Linux Linux Kernel security vulnerability

High CVSS 7.8

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: i2c: virtio: disable timeout handling If a timeout is hit, it can result is incorrect data on the I2C bus and/or memory corruptions in the guest since the device can still be operating on the buffers it was given while the guest has freed them. Here is, for example, the start of a slub_debug splat which was triggered on the next transfer after one transfer was forced to timeout by setting a breakpoint in the backend (rust-vmm/vhost-device): BUG kmalloc-1k (Not tainted): Poison overwritten First byte 0x1 instead of 0x6b Allocated in virtio_i2c_xfer+0x65/0x35c age=350 cpu=0 pid=29 __kmalloc+0xc2/0x1c9 virtio_i2c_xfer+0x65/0x35c __i2c_transfer+0x429/0x57d i2c_transfer+0x115/0x134 i2cdev_ioctl_rdwr+0x16a/0x1de i2cdev_ioctl+0x247/0x2ed vfs_ioctl+0x21/0x30 sys_ioctl+0xb18/0xb41 Freed in virtio_i2c_xfer+0x32e/0x35c age=244 cpu=0 pid=29 kfree+0x1bd/0x1cc virtio_i2c_xfer+0x32e/0x35c __i2c_transfer+0x429/0x57d i2c_transfer+0x115/0x134 i2cdev_ioctl_rdwr+0x16a/0x1de i2cdev_ioctl+0x247/0x2ed vfs_ioctl+0x21/0x30 sys_ioctl+0xb18/0xb41 There is no simple fix for this (the driver would have to always create bounce buffers and hold…

Severity
High
CVSS
7.8 (3.1)
Published
2024-05-24
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
linux/kernel
Weaknesses
CWE-416

Affected products

  • linux / linux_kernel
  • linux / linux_kernel / 5.16

Showing 2 representative product identities from 3 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Use-after-free, double free, and expired resource use

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Trace ownership, references, callbacks, asynchronous tasks, and teardown paths around the affected object or resource.
  • Identify reachable inputs and timing or state transitions that can release the object while references remain.
  • Confirm affected builds, allocators, feature flags, architectures, and process privileges.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the maintained ownership or lifetime fix and rebuild all artifacts containing the affected native code.
  • Use explicit ownership, safe reference management, cancellation and join semantics, and idempotent teardown.
  • Add deterministic lifetime tests plus isolated sanitizer and concurrency coverage for shutdown and error paths.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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