CVE-2024-56678: In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: powerpc/mm/fault: Fix kfence page fault reporting copy_from_kernel

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: powerpc/mm/fault: Fix kfence page fault reporting copy_from_kernel_nofault() can be called

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: powerpc/mm/fault: Fix kfence page fault reporting copy_from_kernel_nofault() can be called when doing read of /proc/kcore. /proc/kcore can have some unmapped kfence objects which when read via copy_from_kernel_nofault() can cause page faults. Since *_nofault() functions define their own fixup table for handling fault, use that instead of asking kfence to handle such faults. Hence we search the exception tables for the nip which generated the fault. If there is an entry then we let the fixup table handler handle the page fault by returning an error from within ___do_page_fault(). This can be easily triggered if someone tries to do dd from /proc/kcore. eg. dd if=/proc/kcore of=/dev/null bs=1M Some example false negatives: =============================== BUG: KFENCE: invalid read in copy_from_kernel_nofault+0x9c/0x1a0 Invalid read at 0xc0000000fdff0000: copy_from_kernel_nofault+0x9c/0x1a0 0xc00000000665f950 read_kcore_iter+0x57c/0xa04 proc_reg_read_iter+0xe4/0x16c vfs_read+0x320/0x3ec ksys_read+0x90/0x154 system_call_exception+0x120/0x310 system_call_vectored_common+0x15c/0x2ec B

Description from the National Vulnerability Database, published by 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

What it means for a small business

Linux is on the computers, phones or browsers your team uses every day. Turn on automatic updates and restart: most of these fixes only take effect after a restart.

How likely is an attack? The Exploit Prediction Scoring System, run by FIRST (the global association of security response teams), puts the odds of this one being exploited in the next 30 days at 0.22%, higher than 13% of CVEs. That’s low, but low isn’t zero, and the odds jump the day someone publishes an exploit. Scored October 29, 2026, updated daily.

Check your own setup

Website check: reads what your site runs from the outside (WordPress version, plugins it can see, old server software) and matches it against this database.
Server check: what your web server says about itself, and whether that version has known flaws.

Sources

Part of the Huttenlocher Technologies vulnerability database, refreshed twice a day from CISA and the NVD. The title, category and plain-language guidance are ours; check the linked record before acting on a detail. This is general guidance, not a review of your systems.

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