CVE-2019-16994

In the Linux kernel before 5.0, a memory leak exists in sit_init_net() in net/ipv6/sit.c when register_netdev() fails to register sitn->fb_tunnel_dev, which may cause denial of service, aka CID-07f12b26e21a.

Weakness

The product does not sufficiently track and release allocated memory after it has been used, which slowly consumes remaining memory.

Affected Software

Potential Mitigations

• Choose a language or tool that provides automatic memory management, or makes manual memory management less error-prone.
• For example, glibc in Linux provides protection against free of invalid pointers.
• When using Xcode to target OS X or iOS, enable automatic reference counting (ARC) [REF-391].
• To help correctly and consistently manage memory when programming in C++, consider using a smart pointer class such as std::auto_ptr (defined by ISO/IEC ISO/IEC 14882:2003), std::shared_ptr and std::unique_ptr (specified by an upcoming revision of the C++ standard, informally referred to as C++ 1x), or equivalent solutions such as Boost.

References

• http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2020-03/msg00021.html
• https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=07f12b26e21ab359261bf75cfcb424fdc7daeb6d
• https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/07f12b26e21ab359261bf75cfcb424fdc7daeb6d
• https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20191031-0005/