CVE-2024-39480
kernel: kdb: Fix buffer overflow during tab-complete
Severity
LowRed Hat Product Security
CVSS 3.1
Review impact separately from score.
Published · July 5, 2024
Updated · November 21, 2025
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
kdb: Fix buffer overflow during tab-complete
Currently, when the user attempts symbol completion with the Tab key, kdb will use strncpy() to insert the completed symbol into the command buffer. Unfortunately it passes the size of the source buffer rather than the destination to strncpy() with predictably horrible results. Most obviously if the command buffer is already full but cp, the cursor position, is in the middle of the buffer, then we will write past the end of the supplied buffer.
Fix this by replacing the dubious strncpy() calls with memmove()/memcpy() calls plus explicit boundary checks to make sure we have enough space before we start moving characters around.
CVSS score applicability
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
No mitigation is specified in collected source.
CVSS / CWE
CVSS 3.1 · 4.4CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CWE-121 · Stack-based Buffer Overflow