CVE-2024-35884

CVE-2024-35884 highlights a flaw in the Linux kernel's handling of UDP packets when Generic Receive Offload (GRO) forwarding is enabled. The issue occurs because non-tunnel UDP packets are sometimes mistakenly processed as if they belong to a tunnel. This can lead to data corruption or kernel crashes, particularly in environments with complex network configurations or when certain tunneling protocols like Geneve are used.

The kernel's processing logic for GRO and UDP packets fails to properly differentiate between tunneled and non-tunneled packets. As a result, improperly handled packets may lead to segmentation errors or system instability.

This vulnerability affects system availability and could result in crashes or data integrity issues during packet forwarding.

This vulnerability is rated as having a Moderate severity for Red Hat Enterprise Linux because exploitation requires specific, non-default networking features to be enabled and primarily results in a denial of service rather than privilege escalation or remote code execution. Under default configurations, UDP Generic Receive Offload (GRO) forwarding is not enabled, limiting exposure on standard deployments. Systems become susceptible only in advanced networking setups where forwarded UDP traffic traverses cross-namespace encapsulation tunnels (such as Geneve), causing improperly aggregated packets to trigger a kernel crash.

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.