CVE-2021-29649

An issue was discovered in the Linux kernel before 5.11.11. The user mode driver (UMD) has a copy_process() memory leak, related to a lack of cleanup steps in kernel/usermode_driver.c and kernel/bpf/preload/bpf_preload_kern.c, aka CID-f60a85cad677.

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

• https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v5.x/ChangeLog-5.11.11
• https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=f60a85cad677c4f9bb4cadd764f1d106c38c7cf8
• https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/RZGMUP6QEHJJEKPMLKOSPWYMW7PXFC2M/
• https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/VTADK5ELGTATGW2RK3K5MBJ2WGYCPZCM/
• https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/WKRNELXLVFDY6Y5XDMWLIH3VKIMQXLLR/