CVE-2022-49076

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

RDMA/hfi1: Fix use-after-free bug for mm struct

Under certain conditions, such as MPI_Abort, the hfi1 cleanup code may represent the last reference held on the task mm. hfi1_mmu_rb_unregister() then drops the last reference and the mm is freed before the final use in hfi1_release_user_pages(). A new task may allocate the mm structure while it is still being used, resulting in problems. One manifestation is corruption of the mmap_sem counter leading to a hang in down_write(). Another is corruption of an mm struct that is in use by another task.

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/0b7186d657ee55e2cdefae498f07d5c1961e8023
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2bbac98d0930e8161b1957dc0ec99de39ade1b3c
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5a9a1b24ddb510715f8f621263938186579a965c
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5f54364ff6cfcd14cddf5441c4a490bb28dd69f7
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9ca11bd8222a612de0d2f54d050bfcf61ae2883f