CVE-2016-9806 (published 2016-12-28T07:59Z)

Race condition in the netlink_dump function in net/netlink/af_netlink.c in the Linux kernel before 4.6.3 allows local users to cause a denial of service (double free) or possibly have unspecified other impact via a crafted application that makes sendmsg system calls, leading to a free operation associated with a new dump that started earlier than anticipated.

Severity: HIGH
CVSS v2 base score: 7.2 (AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C)
CVSS v3 base score: 7.8, HIGH (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/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.
         
         
cwe_id: CWE-415
cwe_name: Double Free
description: The product calls free() twice on the same memory address, potentially leading to modification of unexpected memory locations.
extended_description: When a program calls free() twice with the same argument, the program's memory management data structures become corrupted. This corruption can cause the program to crash or, in some circumstances, cause two later calls to malloc() to return the same pointer. If malloc() returns the same value twice and the program later gives the attacker control over the data that is written into this doubly-allocated memory, the program becomes vulnerable to a buffer overflow attack.
         

Fix information:
repo_url: https://github.com/torvalds/linux
commit_details: repo_url: https://github.com/torvalds/linux
author: Herbert Xu
author_date: 2016-05-16 17:28:16+08:00
msg: netlink: Fix dump skb leak/double free

When we free cb->skb after a dump, we do it after releasing the
lock.  This means that a new dump could have started in the time
being and we'll end up freeing their skb instead of ours.

This patch saves the skb and module before we unlock so we free
the right memory.

Fixes: 16b304f3404f ("netlink: Eliminate kmalloc in netlink dump operation.")
Reported-by: Baozeng Ding <sploving1@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Herbert Xu <herbert@gondor.apana.org.au>
Acked-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: af_netlink.c
change_type: ModificationType.MODIFY
diff: @@ -2059,6 +2059,7 @@ static int netlink_dump(struct sock *sk)
 	struct netlink_callback *cb;
 	struct sk_buff *skb = NULL;
 	struct nlmsghdr *nlh;
+	struct module *module;
 	int len, err = -ENOBUFS;
 	int alloc_min_size;
 	int alloc_size;
@@ -2134,9 +2135,11 @@ static int netlink_dump(struct sock *sk)
 		cb->done(cb);
 
 	nlk->cb_running = false;
+	module = cb->module;
+	skb = cb->skb;
 	mutex_unlock(nlk->cb_mutex);
-	module_put(cb->module);
-	consume_skb(cb->skb);
+	module_put(module);
+	consume_skb(skb);
 	return 0;
 
 errout_skb:

programming_language: C