Race Condition Affecting kernel-debug package, versions <0:4.18.0-553.22.1.el8_10


Severity

Recommended
high

Based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux security rating

    Threat Intelligence

    EPSS
    0.04% (15th percentile)

Do your applications use this vulnerable package?

In a few clicks we can analyze your entire application and see what components are vulnerable in your application, and suggest you quick fixes.

Test your applications
  • Snyk ID SNYK-RHEL8-KERNELDEBUG-7460294
  • published 16 Jul 2024
  • disclosed 12 Jul 2024

How to fix?

Upgrade RHEL:8 kernel-debug to version 0:4.18.0-553.22.1.el8_10 or higher.
This issue was patched in RHSA-2024:7000.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream kernel-debug package and not the kernel-debug package as distributed by RHEL. See How to fix? for RHEL:8 relevant fixed versions and status.

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

drivers: core: synchronize really_probe() and dev_uevent()

Synchronize the dev->driver usage in really_probe() and dev_uevent(). These can run in different threads, what can result in the following race condition for dev->driver uninitialization:

Thread #1:

really_probe() { ... probe_failed: ... device_unbind_cleanup(dev) { ... dev->driver = NULL; // <= Failed probe sets dev->driver to NULL ... } ... }

Thread #2:

dev_uevent() { ... if (dev->driver) // If dev->driver is NULLed from really_probe() from here on, // after above check, the system crashes add_uevent_var(env, "DRIVER=%s", dev->driver->name); ... }

really_probe() holds the lock, already. So nothing needs to be done there. dev_uevent() is called with lock held, often, too. But not always. What implies that we can't add any locking in dev_uevent() itself. So fix this race by adding the lock to the non-protected path. This is the path where above race is observed:

dev_uevent+0x235/0x380 uevent_show+0x10c/0x1f0 <= Add lock here dev_attr_show+0x3a/0xa0 sysfs_kf_seq_show+0x17c/0x250 kernfs_seq_show+0x7c/0x90 seq_read_iter+0x2d7/0x940 kernfs_fop_read_iter+0xc6/0x310 vfs_read+0x5bc/0x6b0 ksys_read+0xeb/0x1b0 __x64_sys_read+0x42/0x50 x64_sys_call+0x27ad/0x2d30 do_syscall_64+0xcd/0x1d0 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f

Similar cases are reported by syzkaller in

https://syzkaller.appspot.com/bug?extid=ffa8143439596313a85a

But these are regarding the initialization of dev->driver

dev->driver = drv;

As this switches dev->driver to non-NULL these reports can be considered to be false-positives (which should be "fixed" by this commit, as well, though).

The same issue was reported and tried to be fixed back in 2015 in

https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/1421259054-2574-1-git-send-email-a.sangwan@samsung.com/

already.

CVSS Scores

version 3.1
Expand this section

Red Hat

4.7 medium
  • Attack Vector (AV)
    Local
  • Attack Complexity (AC)
    High
  • Privileges Required (PR)
    Low
  • User Interaction (UI)
    None
  • Scope (S)
    Unchanged
  • Confidentiality (C)
    None
  • Integrity (I)
    None
  • Availability (A)
    High
Expand this section

SUSE

4.7 medium