CVE-2022-49939

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

binder: fix UAF of ref->proc caused by race condition

A transaction of type BINDER_TYPE_WEAK_HANDLE can fail to increment the reference for a node. In this case, the target proc normally releases the failed reference upon close as expected. However, if the target is dying in parallel the call will race with binder_deferred_release(), so the target could have released all of its references by now leaving the cleanup of the new failed reference unhandled.

The transaction then ends and the target proc gets released making the ref->proc now a dangling pointer. Later on, ref->node is closed and we attempt to take spin_lock(&ref->proc->inner_lock), which leads to the use-after-free bug reported below. Lets fix this by cleaning up the failed reference on the spot instead of relying on the target to do so.

================================================================== BUG: KASAN: use-after-free in _raw_spin_lock+0xa8/0x150 Write of size 4 at addr ffff5ca207094238 by task kworker/1:0/590

CPU: 1 PID: 590 Comm: kworker/1:0 Not tainted 5.19.0-rc8 #10 Hardware name: linux,dummy-virt (DT) Workqueue: events binder_deferred_func Call trace: dump_backtrace.part.0+0x1d0/0x1e0 show_stack+0x18/0x70 dump_stack_lvl+0x68/0x84 print_report+0x2e4/0x61c kasan_report+0xa4/0x110 kasan_check_range+0xfc/0x1a4 __kasan_check_write+0x3c/0x50 _raw_spin_lock+0xa8/0x150 binder_deferred_func+0x5e0/0x9b0 process_one_work+0x38c/0x5f0 worker_thread+0x9c/0x694 kthread+0x188/0x190 ret_from_fork+0x10/0x20

Weakness

The product contains a concurrent code sequence that requires temporary, exclusive access to a shared resource, but a timing window exists in which the shared resource can be modified by another code sequence operating concurrently.

Affected Software

Extended Description

A race condition occurs within concurrent environments, and it is effectively a property of a code sequence. Depending on the context, a code sequence may be in the form of a function call, a small number of instructions, a series of program invocations, etc. A race condition violates these properties, which are closely related:

A race condition exists when an “interfering code sequence” can still access the shared resource, violating exclusivity. The interfering code sequence could be “trusted” or “untrusted.” A trusted interfering code sequence occurs within the product; it cannot be modified by the attacker, and it can only be invoked indirectly. An untrusted interfering code sequence can be authored directly by the attacker, and typically it is external to the vulnerable product.

Potential Mitigations

• Minimize the usage of shared resources in order to remove as much complexity as possible from the control flow and to reduce the likelihood of unexpected conditions occurring.
• Additionally, this will minimize the amount of synchronization necessary and may even help to reduce the likelihood of a denial of service where an attacker may be able to repeatedly trigger a critical section (CWE-400).

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/26.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/29.html

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/06e5b43ca4dab06a92bf4c2f33766e6fb11b880a
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/229f47603dd306bc0eb1a831439adb8e48bb0eae
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/30d0901b307f27d36b2655fb3048cf31ee0e89c0
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/603a47f2ae56bf68288784d3c0a8c5b8e0a827ed
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9629f2dfdb1dad294b468038ff8e161e94d0b609
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a0e44c64b6061dda7e00b7c458e4523e2331b739
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c2a4b5dc8fa71af73bab704d0cac42ac39767ed6