Attacker Value
Unknown
(0 users assessed)
Exploitability
Unknown
(0 users assessed)
User Interaction
None
Privileges Required
Low
Attack Vector
Local
0

CVE-2024-55916

Disclosure Date: January 11, 2025
Add MITRE ATT&CK tactics and techniques that apply to this CVE.

Description

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

Drivers: hv: util: Avoid accessing a ringbuffer not initialized yet

If the KVP (or VSS) daemon starts before the VMBus channel’s ringbuffer is
fully initialized, we can hit the panic below:

hv_utils: Registering HyperV Utility Driver
hv_vmbus: registering driver hv_utils

BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000000
CPU: 44 UID: 0 PID: 2552 Comm: hv_kvp_daemon Tainted: G E 6.11.0-rc3+ #1
RIP: 0010:hv_pkt_iter_first+0x12/0xd0
Call Trace:

vmbus_recvpacket
hv_kvp_onchannelcallback
vmbus_on_event
tasklet_action_common
tasklet_action
handle_softirqs
irq_exit_rcu
sysvec_hyperv_stimer0
</IRQ>
<TASK>
asm_sysvec_hyperv_stimer0

kvp_register_done
hvt_op_read
vfs_read
ksys_read
__x64_sys_read

This can happen because the KVP/VSS channel callback can be invoked
even before the channel is fully opened:

  1. as soon as hv_kvp_init() –> hvutil_transport_init() creates
    /dev/vmbus/hv_kvp, the kvp daemon can open the device file immediately and
    register itself to the driver by writing a message KVP_OP_REGISTER1 to the
    file (which is handled by kvp_on_msg() –>kvp_handle_handshake()) and
    reading the file for the driver’s response, which is handled by
    hvt_op_read(), which calls hvt->on_read(), i.e. kvp_register_done().

  2. the problem with kvp_register_done() is that it can cause the
    channel callback to be called even before the channel is fully opened,
    and when the channel callback is starting to run, util_probe()–>
    vmbus_open() may have not initialized the ringbuffer yet, so the
    callback can hit the panic of NULL pointer dereference.

To reproduce the panic consistently, we can add a “ssleep(10)” for KVP in
__vmbus_open(), just before the first hv_ringbuffer_init(), and then we
unload and reload the driver hv_utils, and run the daemon manually within
the 10 seconds.

Fix the panic by reordering the steps in util_probe() so the char dev
entry used by the KVP or VSS daemon is not created until after
vmbus_open() has completed. This reordering prevents the race condition
from happening.

Add Assessment

No one has assessed this topic. Be the first to add your voice to the community.

CVSS V3 Severity and Metrics
Base Score:
5.5 Medium
Impact Score:
3.6
Exploitability Score:
1.8
Vector:
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack Vector (AV):
Local
Attack Complexity (AC):
Low
Privileges Required (PR):
Low
User Interaction (UI):
None
Scope (S):
Unchanged
Confidentiality (C):
None
Integrity (I):
None
Availability (A):
High

General Information

Vendors

  • linux

Products

  • linux kernel,
  • linux kernel 6.13
Technical Analysis