CVE-2023-4244

A use-after-free vulnerability in the Linux kernels netfilter: nf_tables component can be exploited to achieve local privilege escalation.

Due to a race condition between nf_tables netlink control plane transaction and nft_set element garbage collection, it is possible to underflow the reference counter causing a use-after-free vulnerability.

We recommend upgrading past commit 3e91b0ebd994635df2346353322ac51ce84ce6d8.

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/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=3e91b0ebd994635df2346353322ac51ce84ce6d8
• https://kernel.dance/3e91b0ebd994635df2346353322ac51ce84ce6d8
• https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2023/10/msg00027.html
• https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2024/01/msg00004.html