Race Condition Affecting kernel-core package, versions *


Severity

Recommended
0.0
medium
0
10

Based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux security rating

    Threat Intelligence

    EPSS
    0.05% (17th 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-RHEL9-KERNELCORE-6372895
  • published 5 Mar 2024
  • disclosed 2 Mar 2024

How to fix?

There is no fixed version for RHEL:9 kernel-core.

NVD Description

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

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

x86/sgx: Resolves SECS reclaim vs. page fault for EAUG race

The SGX EPC reclaimer (ksgxd) may reclaim the SECS EPC page for an enclave and set secs.epc_page to NULL. The SECS page is used for EAUG and ELDU in the SGX page fault handler. However, the NULL check for secs.epc_page is only done for ELDU, not EAUG before being used.

Fix this by doing the same NULL check and reloading of the SECS page as needed for both EAUG and ELDU.

The SECS page holds global enclave metadata. It can only be reclaimed when there are no other enclave pages remaining. At that point, virtually nothing can be done with the enclave until the SECS page is paged back in.

An enclave can not run nor generate page faults without a resident SECS page. But it is still possible for a #PF for a non-SECS page to race with paging out the SECS page: when the last resident non-SECS page A triggers a #PF in a non-resident page B, and then page A and the SECS both are paged out before the #PF on B is handled.

Hitting this bug requires that race triggered with a #PF for EAUG. Following is a trace when it happens.

BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000000 RIP: 0010:sgx_encl_eaug_page+0xc7/0x210 Call Trace: ? __kmem_cache_alloc_node+0x16a/0x440 ? xa_load+0x6e/0xa0 sgx_vma_fault+0x119/0x230 __do_fault+0x36/0x140 do_fault+0x12f/0x400 __handle_mm_fault+0x728/0x1110 handle_mm_fault+0x105/0x310 do_user_addr_fault+0x1ee/0x750 ? __this_cpu_preempt_check+0x13/0x20 exc_page_fault+0x76/0x180 asm_exc_page_fault+0x27/0x30

CVSS Scores

version 3.1
Expand this section

Red Hat

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