Critical [CVE-2024-12084] Rsync: heap buffer overflow in rsync due to improper checksum length handling
This critical-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2024-12084 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat package: rsync.
Aggregated and source-linked by VulniPulse. Data sources, validation and limitations.
VulniPulse record published
Summary
A heap-based buffer overflow flaw was found in the rsync daemon. This issue is due to improper handling of attacker-controlled checksum lengths (s2length) in the code.
When MAX_DIGEST_LEN exceeds the fixed SUM_LENGTH (16 bytes), an attacker can write out of bounds in the sum2 buffer. This vulnerability only affects a limited range of Rsync versions, rsync-3.2.7 and rsync-3.3.0.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux does not ship these versions of Rsync and is not affected. Red Hat considers the severity of this vulnerability to be Critical only in cases where anonymous read access is allowed.
Depending on the configuration and implementation choices, the severity may be significantly reduced for your organization. There are two different methods for utilizing Rsync from a remote system: contacting an Rsync daemon directly with TCP or using a remote-shell program as the transport (such as ssh or rsh).
The risk of this vulnerability changes depending on which connection method is used. The default configuration of an Rsync daemon (rsyncd) running as a service does not require authentication.
While rsyncd can be configured to require users to provide valid credentials, anonymous read access is a common configuration used by file sharing and mirroring hosts. The capabilities of the rsyncd process may vary depending on the user configured to run the Rsync daemon.
Is CVE-2024-12084 exploited?
No exploitation is reported in the sources VulniPulse tracks: CVE-2024-12084 is not in the CISA KEV catalog (checked ) and this advisory does not report exploitation. That is not proof the vulnerability cannot be exploited.
How do I fix CVE-2024-12084?
Upgrade to a fixed release named by Red Hat:
- rsync-0:3.4.1-2.el10
- RHBA-2025:6470
Confirm against the vendor advisory before you patch.
Affected versions
No affected-version range was extracted from the source record. The vendor advisory is authoritative. Check it before change work.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 20 days ago·verify at source
- rsync-0:3.4.1-2.el10
- RHBA-2025:6470
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 20 days ago·verify at source
Mitigation checklist
- Red Hat recommends filtering untrusted connections to Rsync via firewall rules on the host and on network firewall appliances. Additionally, systems which only need to provide remote Rsync access to users with known identities can enable authentication using the ```auth users``` parameter in their rsyncd configuration file (rsyncd.conf). Systems that provide anonymous read access to hosted files via Rsync, such as mirror hosts, do not have reasonable mitigation options available. We strongly urge operators using vulnerable versions of Rsync to update as soon as possible.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 20 days ago·verify at source
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