NULL Pointer Dereference Affecting kernel-rt-modules-internal package, versions *


Severity

Recommended
low

Based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux security rating.

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.05% (18th 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 Learn

Learn about NULL Pointer Dereference vulnerabilities in an interactive lesson.

Start learning
  • Snyk IDSNYK-RHEL9-KERNELRTMODULESINTERNAL-6375520
  • published5 Mar 2024
  • disclosed2 Mar 2024

Introduced: 2 Mar 2024

CVE-2023-52523  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-476  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

There is no fixed version for RHEL:9 kernel-rt-modules-internal.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream kernel-rt-modules-internal package and not the kernel-rt-modules-internal 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:

bpf, sockmap: Reject sk_msg egress redirects to non-TCP sockets

With a SOCKMAP/SOCKHASH map and an sk_msg program user can steer messages sent from one TCP socket (s1) to actually egress from another TCP socket (s2):

tcp_bpf_sendmsg(s1) // = sk_prot->sendmsg tcp_bpf_send_verdict(s1) // __SK_REDIRECT case tcp_bpf_sendmsg_redir(s2) tcp_bpf_push_locked(s2) tcp_bpf_push(s2) tcp_rate_check_app_limited(s2) // expects tcp_sock tcp_sendmsg_locked(s2) // ditto

There is a hard-coded assumption in the call-chain, that the egress socket (s2) is a TCP socket.

However in commit 122e6c79efe1 ("sock_map: Update sock type checks for UDP") we have enabled redirects to non-TCP sockets. This was done for the sake of BPF sk_skb programs. There was no indention to support sk_msg send-to-egress use case.

As a result, attempts to send-to-egress through a non-TCP socket lead to a crash due to invalid downcast from sock to tcp_sock:

BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 000000000000002f ... Call Trace: <TASK> ? show_regs+0x60/0x70 ? __die+0x1f/0x70 ? page_fault_oops+0x80/0x160 ? do_user_addr_fault+0x2d7/0x800 ? rcu_is_watching+0x11/0x50 ? exc_page_fault+0x70/0x1c0 ? asm_exc_page_fault+0x27/0x30 ? tcp_tso_segs+0x14/0xa0 tcp_write_xmit+0x67/0xce0 __tcp_push_pending_frames+0x32/0xf0 tcp_push+0x107/0x140 tcp_sendmsg_locked+0x99f/0xbb0 tcp_bpf_push+0x19d/0x3a0 tcp_bpf_sendmsg_redir+0x55/0xd0 tcp_bpf_send_verdict+0x407/0x550 tcp_bpf_sendmsg+0x1a1/0x390 inet_sendmsg+0x6a/0x70 sock_sendmsg+0x9d/0xc0 ? sockfd_lookup_light+0x12/0x80 __sys_sendto+0x10e/0x160 ? syscall_enter_from_user_mode+0x20/0x60 ? __this_cpu_preempt_check+0x13/0x20 ? lockdep_hardirqs_on+0x82/0x110 __x64_sys_sendto+0x1f/0x30 do_syscall_64+0x38/0x90 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd

Reject selecting a non-TCP sockets as redirect target from a BPF sk_msg program to prevent the crash. When attempted, user will receive an EACCES error from send/sendto/sendmsg() syscall.

CVSS Scores

version 3.1