CVE-2023-52973: kernel: vc_screen: move load of struct vc_data pointer in vcs_read() to avoid UAF
Component: kernel
Severity: Moderate
CVSS v3: 5.5 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)
Public date: 2025-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

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

vc_screen: move load of struct vc_data pointer in vcs_read() to avoid UAF

After a call to console_unlock() in vcs_read() the vc_data struct can be
freed by vc_deallocate(). Because of that, the struct vc_data pointer
load must be done at the top of while loop in vcs_read() to avoid a UAF
when vcs_size() is called.

Syzkaller reported a UAF in vcs_size().

BUG: KASAN: use-after-free in vcs_size (drivers/tty/vt/vc_screen.c:215)
Read of size 4 at addr ffff8881137479a8 by task 4a005ed81e27e65/1537

CPU: 0 PID: 1537 Comm: 4a005ed81e27e65 Not tainted 6.2.0-rc5 #1
Hardware name: Red Hat KVM, BIOS 1.15.0-2.module
Call Trace:
  <TASK>
__asan_report_load4_noabort (mm/kasan/report_generic.c:350)
vcs_size (drivers/tty/vt/vc_screen.c:215)
vcs_read (drivers/tty/vt/vc_screen.c:415)
vfs_read (fs/read_write.c:468 fs/read_write.c:450)
...
  </TASK>

Allocated by task 1191:
...
kmalloc_trace (mm/slab_common.c:1069)
vc_allocate (./include/linux/slab.h:580 ./include/linux/slab.h:720
     drivers/tty/vt/vt.c:1128 drivers/tty/vt/vt.c:1108)
con_install (drivers/tty/vt/vt.c:3383)
tty_init_dev (drivers/tty/tty_io.c:1301 drivers/tty/tty_io.c:1413
     drivers/tty/tty_io.c:1390)
tty_open (drivers/tty/tty_io.c:2080 drivers/tty/tty_io.c:2126)
chrdev_open (fs/char_dev.c:415)
do_dentry_open (fs/open.c:883)
vfs_open (fs/open.c:1014)
...

Freed by task 1548:
...
kfree (mm/slab_common.c:1021)
vc_port_destruct (drivers/tty/vt/vt.c:1094)
tty_port_destructor (drivers/tty/tty_port.c:296)
tty_port_put (drivers/tty/tty_port.c:312)
vt_disallocate_all (drivers/tty/vt/vt_ioctl.c:662 (discriminator 2))
vt_ioctl (drivers/tty/vt/vt_ioctl.c:903)
tty_ioctl (drivers/tty/tty_io.c:2776)
...

The buggy address belongs to the object at ffff888113747800
  which belongs to the cache kmalloc-1k of size 1024
The buggy address is located 424 bytes inside of
  1024-byte region [ffff888113747800, ffff888113747c00)

The buggy address belongs to the physical page:
page:00000000b3fe6c7c refcount:1 mapcount:0 mapping:0000000000000000
     index:0x0 pfn:0x113740
head:00000000b3fe6c7c order:3 compound_mapcount:0 subpages_mapcount:0
     compound_pincount:0
anon flags: 0x17ffffc0010200(slab|head|node=0|zone=2|lastcpupid=0x1fffff)
raw: 0017ffffc0010200 ffff888100042dc0 0000000000000000 dead000000000001
raw: 0000000000000000 0000000000100010 00000001ffffffff 0000000000000000
page dumped because: kasan: bad access detected

Memory state around the buggy address:
  ffff888113747880: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb
  ffff888113747900: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb
> ffff888113747980: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb
                                   ^
  ffff888113747a00: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb
  ffff888113747a80: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb
==================================================================
Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint


Affected upstream versions: 2.6.38
Fixed upstream versions: 0, 4.14.329, 4.19.273, 5.10.168, 5.15.93, 5.4.232, 6.1.11, 6.2
Upstream repository: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git
Upstream fix commit: af79ea9a2443016f64d8fd8d72020cc874f0e066