NULL Pointer Dereference Affecting kernel-bootwrapper package, versions *

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream kernel-bootwrapper package and not the kernel-bootwrapper package as distributed by RHEL. See How to fix? for RHEL:7 relevant fixed versions and status.

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

fs: Pass AT_GETATTR_NOSEC flag to getattr interface function

When vfs_getattr_nosec() calls a filesystem's getattr interface function then the 'nosec' should propagate into this function so that vfs_getattr_nosec() can again be called from the filesystem's gettattr rather than vfs_getattr(). The latter would add unnecessary security checks that the initial vfs_getattr_nosec() call wanted to avoid. Therefore, introduce the getattr flag GETATTR_NOSEC and allow to pass with the new getattr_flags parameter to the getattr interface function. In overlayfs and ecryptfs use this flag to determine which one of the two functions to call.

In a recent code change introduced to IMA vfs_getattr_nosec() ended up calling vfs_getattr() in overlayfs, which in turn called security_inode_getattr() on an exiting process that did not have current->fs set anymore, which then caused a kernel NULL pointer dereference. With this change the call to security_inode_getattr() can be avoided, thus avoiding the NULL pointer dereference.

• https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-52779
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3fb0fa08641903304b9d81d52a379ff031dc41d4
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8a924db2d7b5eb69ba08b1a0af46e9f1359a9bdf