Use After Free Affecting kernel-uek-core package, versions <0:5.15.0-302.167.6.el9uek


Severity

Recommended
high

Based on Oracle Linux security rating.

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.04% (6th percentile)

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-ORACLE9-KERNELUEKCORE-8372332
  • published14 Nov 2024
  • disclosed17 Aug 2024

Introduced: 17 Aug 2024

CVE-2024-43853  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-416  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade Oracle:9 kernel-uek-core to version 0:5.15.0-302.167.6.el9uek or higher.
This issue was patched in ELSA-2024-12815.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream kernel-uek-core package and not the kernel-uek-core package as distributed by Oracle. See How to fix? for Oracle:9 relevant fixed versions and status.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

cgroup/cpuset: Prevent UAF in proc_cpuset_show()

An UAF can happen when /proc/cpuset is read as reported in [1].

This can be reproduced by the following methods: 1.add an mdelay(1000) before acquiring the cgroup_lock In the cgroup_path_ns function. 2.$cat /proc/<pid>/cpuset repeatly. 3.$mount -t cgroup -o cpuset cpuset /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset/ $umount /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset/ repeatly.

The race that cause this bug can be shown as below:

(umount) | (cat /proc/<pid>/cpuset) css_release | proc_cpuset_show css_release_work_fn | css = task_get_css(tsk, cpuset_cgrp_id); css_free_rwork_fn | cgroup_path_ns(css->cgroup, ...); cgroup_destroy_root | mutex_lock(&cgroup_mutex); rebind_subsystems | cgroup_free_root | | // cgrp was freed, UAF | cgroup_path_ns_locked(cgrp,..);

When the cpuset is initialized, the root node top_cpuset.css.cgrp will point to &cgrp_dfl_root.cgrp. In cgroup v1, the mount operation will allocate cgroup_root, and top_cpuset.css.cgrp will point to the allocated &cgroup_root.cgrp. When the umount operation is executed, top_cpuset.css.cgrp will be rebound to &cgrp_dfl_root.cgrp.

The problem is that when rebinding to cgrp_dfl_root, there are cases where the cgroup_root allocated by setting up the root for cgroup v1 is cached. This could lead to a Use-After-Free (UAF) if it is subsequently freed. The descendant cgroups of cgroup v1 can only be freed after the css is released. However, the css of the root will never be released, yet the cgroup_root should be freed when it is unmounted. This means that obtaining a reference to the css of the root does not guarantee that css.cgrp->root will not be freed.

Fix this problem by using rcu_read_lock in proc_cpuset_show(). As cgroup_root is kfree_rcu after commit d23b5c577715 ("cgroup: Make operations on the cgroup root_list RCU safe"), css->cgroup won't be freed during the critical section. To call cgroup_path_ns_locked, css_set_lock is needed, so it is safe to replace task_get_css with task_css.

[1] https://syzkaller.appspot.com/bug?extid=9b1ff7be974a403aa4cd

CVSS Scores

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