netfilter: nf_tables: prevent nf_skb_duplicated corruption
CVE: CVE-2024-49952
Component: kernel
CWE: CWE-284
Severity: Moderate
CVSS v3: 4.4/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Release date: 2024-10-21T00:00:00+00:00

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

netfilter: nf_tables: prevent nf_skb_duplicated corruption

syzbot found that nf_dup_ipv4() or nf_dup_ipv6() could write
per-cpu variable nf_skb_duplicated in an unsafe way [1].

Disabling preemption as hinted by the splat is not enough,
we have to disable soft interrupts as well.

[1]
BUG: using __this_cpu_write() in preemptible [00000000] code: syz.4.282/6316
 caller is nf_dup_ipv4+0x651/0x8f0 net/ipv4/netfilter/nf_dup_ipv4.c:87
CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 6316 Comm: syz.4.282 Not tainted 6.11.0-rc7-syzkaller-00104-g7052622fccb1 #0
Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 08/06/2024
Call Trace:
 <TASK>
  __dump_stack lib/dump_stack.c:93 [inline]
  dump_stack_lvl+0x241/0x360 lib/dump_stack.c:119
  check_preemption_disabled+0x10e/0x120 lib/smp_processor_id.c:49
  nf_dup_ipv4+0x651/0x8f0 net/ipv4/netfilter/nf_dup_ipv4.c:87
  nft_dup_ipv4_eval+0x1db/0x300 net/ipv4/netfilter/nft_dup_ipv4.c:30
  expr_call_ops_eval net/netfilter/nf_tables_core.c:240 [inline]
  nft_do_chain+0x4ad/0x1da0 net/netfilter/nf_tables_core.c:288
  nft_do_chain_ipv4+0x202/0x320 net/netfilter/nft_chain_filter.c:23
  nf_hook_entry_hookfn include/linux/netfilter.h:154 [inline]
  nf_hook_slow+0xc3/0x220 net/netfilter/core.c:626
  nf_hook+0x2c4/0x450 include/linux/netfilter.h:269
  NF_HOOK_COND include/linux/netfilter.h:302 [inline]
  ip_output+0x185/0x230 net/ipv4/ip_output.c:433
  ip_local_out net/ipv4/ip_output.c:129 [inline]
  ip_send_skb+0x74/0x100 net/ipv4/ip_output.c:1495
  udp_send_skb+0xacf/0x1650 net/ipv4/udp.c:981
  udp_sendmsg+0x1c21/0x2a60 net/ipv4/udp.c:1269
  sock_sendmsg_nosec net/socket.c:730 [inline]
  __sock_sendmsg+0x1a6/0x270 net/socket.c:745
  ____sys_sendmsg+0x525/0x7d0 net/socket.c:2597
  ___sys_sendmsg net/socket.c:2651 [inline]
  __sys_sendmmsg+0x3b2/0x740 net/socket.c:2737
  __do_sys_sendmmsg net/socket.c:2766 [inline]
  __se_sys_sendmmsg net/socket.c:2763 [inline]
  __x64_sys_sendmmsg+0xa0/0xb0 net/socket.c:2763
  do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:52 [inline]
  do_syscall_64+0xf3/0x230 arch/x86/entry/common.c:83
 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f
RIP: 0033:0x7f4ce4f7def9
Code: ff ff c3 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 0f 1f 40 00 48 89 f8 48 89 f7 48 89 d6 48 89 ca 4d 89 c2 4d 89 c8 4c 8b 4c 24 08 0f 05 <48> 3d 01 f0 ff ff 73 01 c3 48 c7 c1 a8 ff ff ff f7 d8 64 89 01 48
RSP: 002b:00007f4ce5d4a038 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 0000000000000133
RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 00007f4ce5135f80 RCX: 00007f4ce4f7def9
RDX: 0000000000000001 RSI: 0000000020005d40 RDI: 0000000000000006
RBP: 00007f4ce4ff0b76 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000
R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 0000000000000000
R13: 0000000000000000 R14: 00007f4ce5135f80 R15: 00007ffd4cbc6d68
 </TASK>

Statement: Only local users with `CAP_NET_ADMIN` capability (or root) can trigger this issue. 
On Red Hat Enterprise Linux, local unprivileged users can exploit unprivileged user namespaces (CONFIG_USER_NS) to grant themselves this capability.

The OpenShift Container Platform (OCP) control planes or master machines are based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) that consists primarily of RHEL components, hence is also affected by this kernel vulnerability. Like it is mentioned earlier, the successful exploit needs necessary privileges (CAP_NET_ADMIN) and direct, local access . Local user in RHCOS is already a root with full permissions, hence existence of this vulnerability does not bring any value from the potential attacker perspective. From the OpenShift containers perspective, this vulnerability cannot be exploited as in OpenShift the cluster processes on the node are namespaced, which means that switching in the running OpenShift container the namespace will not bring necessary capabilities.
This means that for OpenShift, the impact of this vulnerability is Low.
Similar to CVE-2023-32233 vulnerability has been explained in the following blog post as an example of "Container escape vulnerability":
https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/containers-vulnerability-risk-assessment

Remediation:
1. This flaw can be mitigated by preventing the affected netfilter (nf_tables) kernel module from being loaded. For instructions on how to blacklist a kernel module, please see https://access.redhat.com/solutions/41278.

2. If the module cannot be disabled, on non-containerized deployments of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the mitigation is to disable user namespaces:
```
# echo "user.max_user_namespaces=0" > /etc/sysctl.d/userns.conf
# sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.d/userns.conf
```
On containerized deployments, such as Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, do not use the second mitigation (disabling user namespaces) as the functionality is needed to be enabled. The first mitigation (blacklisting nf_tables) is still viable for containerized deployments, providing the environment is not using netfilter.