CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2022-3176

Use After Free

Published: Sep 16, 2022 | Modified: Apr 11, 2023
CVSS 3.x
7.8
HIGH
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CVSS 2.x
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu

There exists a use-after-free in io_uring in the Linux kernel. Signalfd_poll() and binder_poll() use a waitqueue whose lifetime is the current task. It will send a POLLFREE notification to all waiters before the queue is freed. Unfortunately, the io_uring poll doesnt handle POLLFREE. This allows a use-after-free to occur if a signalfd or binder fd is polled with io_uring poll, and the waitqueue gets freed. We recommend upgrading past commit fc78b2fc21f10c4c9c4d5d659a685710ffa63659

Weakness

Referencing memory after it has been freed can cause a program to crash, use unexpected values, or execute code.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Linux_kernel Linux 5.1 (including) 5.4.212 (excluding)
Linux_kernel Linux 5.5 (including) 5.10.141 (excluding)
Linux_kernel Linux 5.11 (including) 5.15.65 (excluding)
Linux_kernel Linux 5.16 (including) 5.17 (excluding)

Extended Description

The use of previously-freed memory can have any number of adverse consequences, ranging from the corruption of valid data to the execution of arbitrary code, depending on the instantiation and timing of the flaw. The simplest way data corruption may occur involves the system’s reuse of the freed memory. Use-after-free errors have two common and sometimes overlapping causes:

In this scenario, the memory in question is allocated to another pointer validly at some point after it has been freed. The original pointer to the freed memory is used again and points to somewhere within the new allocation. As the data is changed, it corrupts the validly used memory; this induces undefined behavior in the process. If the newly allocated data happens to hold a class, in C++ for example, various function pointers may be scattered within the heap data. If one of these function pointers is overwritten with an address to valid shellcode, execution of arbitrary code can be achieved.

Potential Mitigations

References