CVE-2012-4530 (published 2013-02-18T04:41Z)

The load_script function in fs/binfmt_script.c in the Linux kernel before 3.7.2 does not properly handle recursion, which allows local users to obtain sensitive information from kernel stack memory via a crafted application.

Severity: LOW
CVSS v2 base score: 2.1 (AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N)

Weakness information:
cwe_id: CWE-200
cwe_name: Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor
description: The product exposes sensitive information to an actor that is not explicitly authorized to have access to that information.
extended_description: 
	   There are many different kinds of mistakes that introduce information exposures. The severity of the error can range widely, depending on the context in which the product operates, the type of sensitive information that is revealed, and the benefits it may provide to an attacker.  Some kinds of sensitive information include:
       
         private, personal information, such as personal messages, financial data, health records, geographic location, or contact details
         system status and environment, such as the operating system and installed packages
		 business secrets and intellectual property
		 network status and configuration
		 the product's own code or internal state
         metadata, e.g. logging of connections or message headers
		 indirect information, such as a discrepancy between two internal operations that can be observed by an outsider
       
	    Information might be sensitive to different parties, each of which may have their own expectations for whether the information should be protected.  These parties include:
               
                  the product's own users
                  people or organizations whose information is created or used by the product, even if they are not direct product users
		  the product's administrators, including the admins of the system(s) and/or networks on which the product operates
                  the developer
               
	    Information exposures can occur in different ways:
               
                  the code explicitly inserts sensitive information into resources or messages that are intentionally made accessible to unauthorized actors, but should not contain the information - i.e., the information should have been "scrubbed" or "sanitized"
                  a different weakness or mistake indirectly inserts the sensitive information into resources, such as a web script error revealing the full system path of the program.
                  the code manages resources that intentionally contain sensitive information, but the resources are unintentionally made accessible to unauthorized actors. In this case, the information exposure is resultant - i.e., a different weakness enabled the access to the information in the first place.
               
	    It is common practice to describe any loss of confidentiality as an "information exposure," but this can lead to overuse of CWE-200 in CWE mapping. From the CWE perspective, loss of confidentiality is a technical impact that can arise from dozens of different weaknesses, such as insecure file permissions or out-of-bounds read.  CWE-200 and its lower-level descendants are intended to cover the mistakes that occur in behaviors that explicitly manage, store, transfer, or cleanse sensitive information.
         
         

Fix information:
repo_url: https://github.com/torvalds/linux
commit_details: repo_url: https://github.com/torvalds/linux
author: Kees Cook
author_date: 2012-12-20 15:05:16-08:00
msg: exec: do not leave bprm->interp on stack

If a series of scripts are executed, each triggering module loading via
unprintable bytes in the script header, kernel stack contents can leak
into the command line.

Normally execution of binfmt_script and binfmt_misc happens recursively.
However, when modules are enabled, and unprintable bytes exist in the
bprm->buf, execution will restart after attempting to load matching
binfmt modules.  Unfortunately, the logic in binfmt_script and
binfmt_misc does not expect to get restarted.  They leave bprm->interp
pointing to their local stack.  This means on restart bprm->interp is
left pointing into unused stack memory which can then be copied into the
userspace argv areas.

After additional study, it seems that both recursion and restart remains
the desirable way to handle exec with scripts, misc, and modules.  As
such, we need to protect the changes to interp.

This changes the logic to require allocation for any changes to the
bprm->interp.  To avoid adding a new kmalloc to every exec, the default
value is left as-is.  Only when passing through binfmt_script or
binfmt_misc does an allocation take place.

For a proof of concept, see DoTest.sh from:

   http://www.halfdog.net/Security/2012/LinuxKernelBinfmtScriptStackDataDisclosure/

Signed-off-by: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Cc: halfdog <me@halfdog.net>
Cc: P J P <ppandit@redhat.com>
Cc: Alexander Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
repository: repo_url: https://github.com/torvalds/linux
repo_name: torvalds/linux
description: Linux kernel source tree
repo_language: C
owner: torvalds
file_changes: filename: binfmt_misc.c
change_type: ModificationType.MODIFY
diff: @@ -172,7 +172,10 @@ static int load_misc_binary(struct linux_binprm *bprm)
 		goto _error;
 	bprm->argc ++;
 
-	bprm->interp = iname;	/* for binfmt_script */
+	/* Update interp in case binfmt_script needs it. */
+	retval = bprm_change_interp(iname, bprm);
+	if (retval < 0)
+		goto _error;
 
 	interp_file = open_exec (iname);
 	retval = PTR_ERR (interp_file);

programming_language: C
filename: binfmt_script.c
change_type: ModificationType.MODIFY
diff: @@ -80,7 +80,9 @@ static int load_script(struct linux_binprm *bprm)
 	retval = copy_strings_kernel(1, &i_name, bprm);
 	if (retval) return retval; 
 	bprm->argc++;
-	bprm->interp = interp;
+	retval = bprm_change_interp(interp, bprm);
+	if (retval < 0)
+		return retval;
 
 	/*
 	 * OK, now restart the process with the interpreter's dentry.

programming_language: C
filename: exec.c
change_type: ModificationType.MODIFY
diff: @@ -1175,9 +1175,24 @@ void free_bprm(struct linux_binprm *bprm)
 		mutex_unlock(&current->signal->cred_guard_mutex);
 		abort_creds(bprm->cred);
 	}
+	/* If a binfmt changed the interp, free it. */
+	if (bprm->interp != bprm->filename)
+		kfree(bprm->interp);
 	kfree(bprm);
 }
 
+int bprm_change_interp(char *interp, struct linux_binprm *bprm)
+{
+	/* If a binfmt changed the interp, free it first. */
+	if (bprm->interp != bprm->filename)
+		kfree(bprm->interp);
+	bprm->interp = kstrdup(interp, GFP_KERNEL);
+	if (!bprm->interp)
+		return -ENOMEM;
+	return 0;
+}
+EXPORT_SYMBOL(bprm_change_interp);
+
 /*
  * install the new credentials for this executable
  */

programming_language: C
filename: binfmts.h
change_type: ModificationType.MODIFY
diff: @@ -112,6 +112,7 @@ extern int setup_arg_pages(struct linux_binprm * bprm,
 			   unsigned long stack_top,
 			   int executable_stack);
 extern int bprm_mm_init(struct linux_binprm *bprm);
+extern int bprm_change_interp(char *interp, struct linux_binprm *bprm);
 extern int copy_strings_kernel(int argc, const char *const *argv,
 			       struct linux_binprm *bprm);
 extern int prepare_bprm_creds(struct linux_binprm *bprm);

programming_language: C