CVE-2018-12232 (published 2018-06-12T12:29Z)

In net/socket.c in the Linux kernel through 4.17.1, there is a race condition between fchownat and close in cases where they target the same socket file descriptor, related to the sock_close and sockfs_setattr functions. fchownat does not increment the file descriptor reference count, which allows close to set the socket to NULL during fchownat's execution, leading to a NULL pointer dereference and system crash.

Severity: HIGH
CVSS v2 base score: 7.1 (AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C)
CVSS v3 base score: 5.9, MEDIUM (CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)

Weakness information:
cwe_id: CWE-362
cwe_name: Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization ('Race Condition')
description: The product contains a code sequence that can run concurrently with other code, and the code sequence requires temporary, exclusive access to a shared resource, but a timing window exists in which the shared resource can be modified by another code sequence that is operating concurrently.
extended_description: 
            This can have security implications when the expected synchronization is in security-critical code, such as recording whether a user is authenticated or modifying important state information that should not be influenced by an outsider.
            A race condition occurs within concurrent environments, and is effectively a property of a code sequence. Depending on the context, a code sequence may be in the form of a function call, a small number of instructions, a series of program invocations, etc.
            A race condition violates these properties, which are closely related:
               
                  Exclusivity - the code sequence is given exclusive access to the shared resource, i.e., no other code sequence can modify properties of the shared resource before the original sequence has completed execution.
                  Atomicity - the code sequence is behaviorally atomic, i.e., no other thread or process can concurrently execute the same sequence of instructions (or a subset) against the same resource.
               
            A race condition exists when an "interfering code sequence" can still access the shared resource, violating exclusivity. Programmers may assume that certain code sequences execute too quickly to be affected by an interfering code sequence; when they are not, this violates atomicity. For example, the single "x++" statement may appear atomic at the code layer, but it is actually non-atomic at the instruction layer, since it involves a read (the original value of x), followed by a computation (x+1), followed by a write (save the result to x).
            The interfering code sequence could be "trusted" or "untrusted." A trusted interfering code sequence occurs within the product; it cannot be modified by the attacker, and it can only be invoked indirectly. An untrusted interfering code sequence can be authored directly by the attacker, and typically it is external to the vulnerable product.
         
         

Fix information:
repo_url: https://github.com/torvalds/linux
commit_details: repo_url: https://github.com/torvalds/linux
author: Cong Wang
author_date: 2018-06-07 13:39:49-07:00
msg: socket: close race condition between sock_close() and sockfs_setattr()

fchownat() doesn't even hold refcnt of fd until it figures out
fd is really needed (otherwise is ignored) and releases it after
it resolves the path. This means sock_close() could race with
sockfs_setattr(), which leads to a NULL pointer dereference
since typically we set sock->sk to NULL in ->release().

As pointed out by Al, this is unique to sockfs. So we can fix this
in socket layer by acquiring inode_lock in sock_close() and
checking against NULL in sockfs_setattr().

sock_release() is called in many places, only the sock_close()
path matters here. And fortunately, this should not affect normal
sock_close() as it is only called when the last fd refcnt is gone.
It only affects sock_close() with a parallel sockfs_setattr() in
progress, which is not common.

Fixes: 86741ec25462 ("net: core: Add a UID field to struct sock.")
Reported-by: shankarapailoor <shankarapailoor@gmail.com>
Cc: Tetsuo Handa <penguin-kernel@i-love.sakura.ne.jp>
Cc: Lorenzo Colitti <lorenzo@google.com>
Cc: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Signed-off-by: Cong Wang <xiyou.wangcong@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
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: socket.c
change_type: ModificationType.MODIFY
diff: @@ -541,7 +541,10 @@ static int sockfs_setattr(struct dentry *dentry, struct iattr *iattr)
 	if (!err && (iattr->ia_valid & ATTR_UID)) {
 		struct socket *sock = SOCKET_I(d_inode(dentry));
 
-		sock->sk->sk_uid = iattr->ia_uid;
+		if (sock->sk)
+			sock->sk->sk_uid = iattr->ia_uid;
+		else
+			err = -ENOENT;
 	}
 
 	return err;
@@ -590,12 +593,16 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL(sock_alloc);
  *	an inode not a file.
  */
 
-void sock_release(struct socket *sock)
+static void __sock_release(struct socket *sock, struct inode *inode)
 {
 	if (sock->ops) {
 		struct module *owner = sock->ops->owner;
 
+		if (inode)
+			inode_lock(inode);
 		sock->ops->release(sock);
+		if (inode)
+			inode_unlock(inode);
 		sock->ops = NULL;
 		module_put(owner);
 	}
@@ -609,6 +616,11 @@ void sock_release(struct socket *sock)
 	}
 	sock->file = NULL;
 }
+
+void sock_release(struct socket *sock)
+{
+	__sock_release(sock, NULL);
+}
 EXPORT_SYMBOL(sock_release);
 
 void __sock_tx_timestamp(__u16 tsflags, __u8 *tx_flags)
@@ -1171,7 +1183,7 @@ static int sock_mmap(struct file *file, struct vm_area_struct *vma)
 
 static int sock_close(struct inode *inode, struct file *filp)
 {
-	sock_release(SOCKET_I(inode));
+	__sock_release(SOCKET_I(inode), inode);
 	return 0;
 }
 

programming_language: C