CVE-2021-4441

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

spi: spi-zynq-qspi: Fix a NULL pointer dereference in zynq_qspi_exec_mem_op()

In zynq_qspi_exec_mem_op(), kzalloc() is directly used in memset(), which could lead to a NULL pointer dereference on failure of kzalloc().

Fix this bug by adding a check of tmpbuf.

This bug was found by a static analyzer. The analysis employs differential checking to identify inconsistent security operations (e.g., checks or kfrees) between two code paths and confirms that the inconsistent operations are not recovered in the current function or the callers, so they constitute bugs.

Note that, as a bug found by static analysis, it can be a false positive or hard to trigger. Multiple researchers have cross-reviewed the bug.

Builds with CONFIG_SPI_ZYNQ_QSPI=m show no new warnings, and our static analyzer no longer warns about this code.

Weakness

A NULL pointer dereference occurs when the application dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid, but is NULL, typically causing a crash or exit.

Affected Software

Potential Mitigations

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2efece1368aeee2d2552c7ec36aeb676c4d4c95f
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3c32405d6474a21f7d742828e73c13e326dcae82
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ab3824427b848da10e9fe2727f035bbeecae6ff4
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b9dd08cbebe0c593c49bf86d2012a431494e54cb
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/df14d2bed8e2455878e046e67123d9ecb2e79056