CVE-2024-42245

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's task scheduler. A local user can cause a Denial of Service (DoS) by assigning a large number of tasks to a single processor core. When the kernel attempts to balance workloads across cores, the scheduler iterates through all pinned tasks without enforcing normal search limits while holding critical locks. This excessive processing triggers a kernel lockup, causing the system to hang or become unresponsive.

This vulnerability is rated as Moderate because exploitation is confined to local users and restricted to a denial of service, with no compromise of confidentiality or data integrity. In typical Red Hat Enterprise Linux installations, triggering this condition requires an extreme workload where thousands of threads are explicitly pinned to a single CPU. While multi-tenant systems permitting extensive process generation and affinity control face potential kernel lockups during CPU load balancing, default user resource limitations mitigate practical exposure.

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.