CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2016-9401

Use After Free

Published: Jan 23, 2017 | Modified: Nov 21, 2024
CVSS 3.x
5.5
MEDIUM
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CVSS 2.x
2.1 LOW
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
RedHat/V2
1.9 LOW
AV:L/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
RedHat/V3
3.3 LOW
CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
Ubuntu
NEGLIGIBLE

popd in bash might allow local users to bypass the restricted shell and cause a use-after-free via a crafted address.

Weakness

Referencing memory after it has been freed can cause a program to crash, use unexpected values, or execute code.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Bash Gnu * 4.4 (excluding)
Bash Gnu 4.4-patch1 (including) 4.4-patch1 (including)
Bash Gnu 4.4-patch2 (including) 4.4-patch2 (including)
Bash Gnu 4.4-patch3 (including) 4.4-patch3 (including)
Bash Gnu 4.4-patch4 (including) 4.4-patch4 (including)
Bash Gnu 4.4-patch5 (including) 4.4-patch5 (including)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 RedHat bash-0:4.1.2-48.el6 *
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 RedHat bash-0:4.2.46-28.el7 *
Bash Ubuntu artful *
Bash Ubuntu bionic *
Bash Ubuntu cosmic *
Bash Ubuntu devel *
Bash Ubuntu disco *
Bash Ubuntu eoan *
Bash Ubuntu focal *
Bash Ubuntu groovy *
Bash Ubuntu hirsute *
Bash Ubuntu precise *
Bash Ubuntu precise/esm *
Bash Ubuntu trusty *
Bash Ubuntu vivid/stable-phone-overlay *
Bash Ubuntu vivid/ubuntu-core *
Bash Ubuntu xenial *
Bash Ubuntu yakkety *
Bash Ubuntu zesty *

Extended Description

The use of previously-freed memory can have any number of adverse consequences, ranging from the corruption of valid data to the execution of arbitrary code, depending on the instantiation and timing of the flaw. The simplest way data corruption may occur involves the system’s reuse of the freed memory. Use-after-free errors have two common and sometimes overlapping causes:

In this scenario, the memory in question is allocated to another pointer validly at some point after it has been freed. The original pointer to the freed memory is used again and points to somewhere within the new allocation. As the data is changed, it corrupts the validly used memory; this induces undefined behavior in the process. If the newly allocated data happens to hold a class, in C++ for example, various function pointers may be scattered within the heap data. If one of these function pointers is overwritten with an address to valid shellcode, execution of arbitrary code can be achieved.

Potential Mitigations

References