CVE-2022-48869

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

USB: gadgetfs: Fix race between mounting and unmounting

The syzbot fuzzer and Gerald Lee have identified a use-after-free bug in the gadgetfs driver, involving processes concurrently mounting and unmounting the gadgetfs filesystem. In particular, gadgetfs_fill_super() can race with gadgetfs_kill_sb(), causing the latter to deallocate the_device while the former is using it. The output from KASAN says, in part:

BUG: KASAN: use-after-free in instrument_atomic_read_write include/linux/instrumented.h:102 [inline] BUG: KASAN: use-after-free in atomic_fetch_sub_release include/linux/atomic/atomic-instrumented.h:176 [inline] BUG: KASAN: use-after-free in __refcount_sub_and_test include/linux/refcount.h:272 [inline] BUG: KASAN: use-after-free in __refcount_dec_and_test include/linux/refcount.h:315 [inline] BUG: KASAN: use-after-free in refcount_dec_and_test include/linux/refcount.h:333 [inline] BUG: KASAN: use-after-free in put_dev drivers/usb/gadget/legacy/inode.c:159 [inline] BUG: KASAN: use-after-free in gadgetfs_kill_sb+0x33/0x100 drivers/usb/gadget/legacy/inode.c:2086 Write of size 4 at addr ffff8880276d7840 by task syz-executor126/18689

CPU: 0 PID: 18689 Comm: syz-executor126 Not tainted 6.1.0-syzkaller #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 10/26/2022 Call Trace: … atomic_fetch_sub_release include/linux/atomic/atomic-instrumented.h:176 [inline] __refcount_sub_and_test include/linux/refcount.h:272 [inline] __refcount_dec_and_test include/linux/refcount.h:315 [inline] refcount_dec_and_test include/linux/refcount.h:333 [inline] put_dev drivers/usb/gadget/legacy/inode.c:159 [inline] gadgetfs_kill_sb+0x33/0x100 drivers/usb/gadget/legacy/inode.c:2086 deactivate_locked_super+0xa7/0xf0 fs/super.c:332 vfs_get_super fs/super.c:1190 [inline] get_tree_single+0xd0/0x160 fs/super.c:1207 vfs_get_tree+0x88/0x270 fs/super.c:1531 vfs_fsconfig_locked fs/fsopen.c:232 [inline]

The simplest solution is to ensure that gadgetfs_fill_super() and gadgetfs_kill_sb() are serialized by making them both acquire a new mutex.

Weakness

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

Affected Software

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

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/616fd34d017000ecf9097368b13d8a266f4920b3
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/856e4b5e53f21edbd15d275dde62228dd94fb2b4
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9a39f4626b361ee7aa10fd990401c37ec3b466ae
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a2e075f40122d8daf587db126c562a67abd69cf9
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d18dcfe9860e842f394e37ba01ca9440ab2178f4