CVE-2024-35983

A vulnerability was found in the Linux kernel related to the improper handling of power-of-two values for CONFIG_NR_CPUS. The bits_per() function incorrectly rounds up to the next power of two when given a power of two, causing crashes on certain systems.

This vulnerability is rated as having a Moderate impact for Red Hat Enterprise Linux because the resulting failure is confined to a local denial of service via system crashes, with no opportunity for unauthorized data access or privilege elevation. The flaw involves miscalculating the bit allocation required for processor limits during kernel builds when CPU counts align with powers of two. Under affected configurations, this miscalculation can lead to memory structure boundary issues and subsequent kernel panics.

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.

Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base or stability.