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

mlxsw: thermal: Fix out-of-bounds memory accesses

Currently, mlxsw allows cooling states to be set above the maximum cooling state supported by the driver:

cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone2/cdev0/type

mlxsw_fan

cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone2/cdev0/max_state

10

echo 18 > /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone2/cdev0/cur_state

echo $?

0

This results in out-of-bounds memory accesses when thermal state transition statistics are enabled (CONFIG_THERMAL_STATISTICS=y), as the transition table is accessed with a too large index (state) [1].

According to the thermal maintainer, it is the responsibility of the driver to reject such operations [2].

Therefore, return an error when the state to be set exceeds the maximum cooling state supported by the driver.

To avoid dead code, as suggested by the thermal maintainer [3], partially revert commit a421ce088ac8 (mlxsw: core: Extend cooling device with cooling levels) that tried to interpret these invalid cooling states (above the maximum) in a special way. The cooling levels array is not removed in order to prevent the fans going below 20% PWM, which would cause them to get stuck at 0% PWM.

[1] BUG: KASAN: slab-out-of-bounds in thermal_cooling_device_stats_update+0x271/0x290 Read of size 4 at addr ffff8881052f7bf8 by task kworker/0:0/5

CPU: 0 PID: 5 Comm: kworker/0:0 Not tainted 5.15.0-rc3-custom-45935-gce1adf704b14 #122 Hardware name: Mellanox Technologies Ltd. MSN2410-CB2FO/SA000874, BIOS 4.6.5 03/08/2016 Workqueue: events_freezable_power_ thermal_zone_device_check Call Trace: dump_stack_lvl+0x8b/0xb3 print_address_description.constprop.0+0x1f/0x140 kasan_report.cold+0x7f/0x11b thermal_cooling_device_stats_update+0x271/0x290 __thermal_cdev_update+0x15e/0x4e0 thermal_cdev_update+0x9f/0xe0 step_wise_throttle+0x770/0xee0 thermal_zone_device_update+0x3f6/0xdf0 process_one_work+0xa42/0x1770 worker_thread+0x62f/0x13e0 kthread+0x3ee/0x4e0 ret_from_fork+0x1f/0x30

Allocated by task 1: kasan_save_stack+0x1b/0x40 __kasan_kmalloc+0x7c/0x90 thermal_cooling_device_setup_sysfs+0x153/0x2c0 __thermal_cooling_device_register.part.0+0x25b/0x9c0 thermal_cooling_device_register+0xb3/0x100 mlxsw_thermal_init+0x5c5/0x7e0 __mlxsw_core_bus_device_register+0xcb3/0x19c0 mlxsw_core_bus_device_register+0x56/0xb0 mlxsw_pci_probe+0x54f/0x710 local_pci_probe+0xc6/0x170 pci_device_probe+0x2b2/0x4d0 really_probe+0x293/0xd10 __driver_probe_device+0x2af/0x440 driver_probe_device+0x51/0x1e0 __driver_attach+0x21b/0x530 bus_for_each_dev+0x14c/0x1d0 bus_add_driver+0x3ac/0x650 driver_register+0x241/0x3d0 mlxsw_sp_module_init+0xa2/0x174 do_one_initcall+0xee/0x5f0 kernel_init_freeable+0x45a/0x4de kernel_init+0x1f/0x210 ret_from_fork+0x1f/0x30

The buggy address belongs to the object at ffff8881052f7800 which belongs to the cache kmalloc-1k of size 1024 The buggy address is located 1016 bytes inside of 1024-byte region [ffff8881052f7800, ffff8881052f7c00) The buggy address belongs to the page: page:0000000052355272 refcount:1 mapcount:0 mapping:0000000000000000 index:0x0 pfn:0x1052f0 head:0000000052355272 order:3 compound_mapcount:0 compound_pincount:0 flags: 0x200000000010200(slab|head|node=0|zone=2) raw: 0200000000010200 ffffea0005034800 0000000300000003 ffff888100041dc0 raw: 0000000000000000 0000000000100010 00000001ffffffff 0000000000000000 page dumped because: kasan: bad access detected

Memory state around the buggy address: ffff8881052f7a80: 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc ffff8881052f7b00: fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc

ffff8881052f7b80: fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc ^ ffff8881052f7c00: fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc ffff8881052f7c80: fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc

[2] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-pm/9aca37cb-1629-5c67- —truncated—

Weakness

The product writes data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer.

Affected Software

Potential Mitigations

• Use a language that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.

• For example, many languages that perform their own memory management, such as Java and Perl, are not subject to buffer overflows. Other languages, such as Ada and C#, typically provide overflow protection, but the protection can be disabled by the programmer.

• Be wary that a language’s interface to native code may still be subject to overflows, even if the language itself is theoretically safe.

• Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid.

• Examples include the Safe C String Library (SafeStr) by Messier and Viega [REF-57], and the Strsafe.h library from Microsoft [REF-56]. These libraries provide safer versions of overflow-prone string-handling functions.

• Use automatic buffer overflow detection mechanisms that are offered by certain compilers or compiler extensions. Examples include: the Microsoft Visual Studio /GS flag, Fedora/Red Hat FORTIFY_SOURCE GCC flag, StackGuard, and ProPolice, which provide various mechanisms including canary-based detection and range/index checking.

• D3-SFCV (Stack Frame Canary Validation) from D3FEND [REF-1334] discusses canary-based detection in detail.

• Consider adhering to the following rules when allocating and managing an application’s memory:

• Run or compile the software using features or extensions that randomly arrange the positions of a program’s executable and libraries in memory. Because this makes the addresses unpredictable, it can prevent an attacker from reliably jumping to exploitable code.

• Examples include Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) [REF-58] [REF-60] and Position-Independent Executables (PIE) [REF-64]. Imported modules may be similarly realigned if their default memory addresses conflict with other modules, in a process known as “rebasing” (for Windows) and “prelinking” (for Linux) [REF-1332] using randomly generated addresses. ASLR for libraries cannot be used in conjunction with prelink since it would require relocating the libraries at run-time, defeating the whole purpose of prelinking.

• For more information on these techniques see D3-SAOR (Segment Address Offset Randomization) from D3FEND [REF-1335].

• Use a CPU and operating system that offers Data Execution Protection (using hardware NX or XD bits) or the equivalent techniques that simulate this feature in software, such as PaX [REF-60] [REF-61]. These techniques ensure that any instruction executed is exclusively at a memory address that is part of the code segment.

• For more information on these techniques see D3-PSEP (Process Segment Execution Prevention) from D3FEND [REF-1336].

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/332fdf951df8b870e3da86b122ae304e2aabe88c
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ae0993739e14a102d506aa09e11b0065f3144f10
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/df8e58716afb3bee2b59de66b1ba1033f2e26303
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e59d839743b50cb1d3f42a786bea48cc5621d254