CVE-2018-3979

A remote denial-of-service vulnerability exists in the way the Nouveau Display Driver (the default Ubuntu Nvidia display driver) handles GPU shader execution. A specially crafted pixel shader can cause remote denial-of-service issues. An attacker can provide a specially crafted website to trigger this vulnerability. This vulnerability can be triggered remotely after the user visits a malformed website. No further user interaction is required. Vulnerable versions include Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (linux 4.15.0-29-generic x86_64), Nouveau Display Driver NV117 (vermagic: 4.15.0-29-generic SMP mod_unload).

Weakness

The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.

Affected Software

Potential Mitigations

• Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either:

• The first of these solutions is an issue in itself though, since it may allow attackers to prevent the use of the system by a particular valid user. If the attacker impersonates the valid user, they may be able to prevent the user from accessing the server in question.

• The second solution is simply difficult to effectively institute – and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply makes the attack require more resources on the part of the attacker.

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/147.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/227.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/492.html

References

• https://talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2018-0647
• https://talosintelligence.com/vulnerability_reports/TALOS-2018-0647