CVE-2019-16995

In the Linux kernel before 5.0.3, a memory leak exits in hsr_dev_finalize() in net/hsr/hsr_device.c if hsr_add_port fails to add a port, which may cause denial of service, aka CID-6caabe7f197d.

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/2019-11/msg00010.html
• http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-11/msg00035.html
• https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v5.x/ChangeLog-5.0.3
• https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=6caabe7f197d3466d238f70915d65301f1716626
• https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/6caabe7f197d3466d238f70915d65301f1716626
• https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20191031-0005/