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

CVE-2024-50066

Disclosure Date: October 23, 2024
Add MITRE ATT&CK tactics and techniques that apply to this CVE.

Description

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

mm/mremap: fix move_normal_pmd/retract_page_tables race

In mremap(), move_page_tables() looks at the type of the PMD entry and the
specified address range to figure out by which method the next chunk of
page table entries should be moved.

At that point, the mmap_lock is held in write mode, but no rmap locks are
held yet. For PMD entries that point to page tables and are fully covered
by the source address range, move_pgt_entry(NORMAL_PMD, …) is called,
which first takes rmap locks, then does move_normal_pmd().
move_normal_pmd() takes the necessary page table locks at source and
destination, then moves an entire page table from the source to the
destination.

The problem is: The rmap locks, which protect against concurrent page
table removal by retract_page_tables() in the THP code, are only taken
after the PMD entry has been read and it has been decided how to move it.
So we can race as follows (with two processes that have mappings of the
same tmpfs file that is stored on a tmpfs mount with huge=advise); note
that process A accesses page tables through the MM while process B does it
through the file rmap:

process A process B
========= =========
mremap
mremap_to

move_vma
  move_page_tables
    get_old_pmd
    alloc_new_pmd
                  *** PREEMPT ***
                           madvise(MADV_COLLAPSE)
                             do_madvise
                               madvise_walk_vmas
                                 madvise_vma_behavior
                                   madvise_collapse
                                     hpage_collapse_scan_file
                                       collapse_file
                                         retract_page_tables
                                           i_mmap_lock_read(mapping)
                                           pmdp_collapse_flush
                                           i_mmap_unlock_read(mapping)
    move_pgt_entry(NORMAL_PMD, ...)
      take_rmap_locks
      move_normal_pmd
      drop_rmap_locks

When this happens, move_normal_pmd() can end up creating bogus PMD entries
in the line pmd_populate(mm, new_pmd, pmd_pgtable(pmd)). The effect
depends on arch-specific and machine-specific details; on x86, you can end
up with physical page 0 mapped as a page table, which is likely
exploitable for user->kernel privilege escalation.

Fix the race by letting process B recheck that the PMD still points to a
page table after the rmap locks have been taken. Otherwise, we bail and
let the caller fall back to the PTE-level copying path, which will then
bail immediately at the pmd_none() check.

Bug reachability: Reaching this bug requires that you can create
shmem/file THP mappings – anonymous THP uses different code that doesn’t
zap stuff under rmap locks. File THP is gated on an experimental config
flag (CONFIG_READ_ONLY_THP_FOR_FS), so on normal distro kernels you need
shmem THP to hit this bug. As far as I know, getting shmem THP normally
requires that you can mount your own tmpfs with the right mount flags,
which would require creating your own user+mount namespace; though I don’t
know if some distros maybe enable shmem THP by default or something like
that.

Bug impact: This issue can likely be used for user->kernel privilege
escalation when it is reachable.

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CVSS V3 Severity and Metrics
Base Score:
7.0 High
Impact Score:
5.9
Exploitability Score:
1
Vector:
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Attack Vector (AV):
Local
Attack Complexity (AC):
High
Privileges Required (PR):
Low
User Interaction (UI):
None
Scope (S):
Unchanged
Confidentiality (C):
High
Integrity (I):
High
Availability (A):
High

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Technical Analysis