CVE-2023-52584

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

spmi: mediatek: Fix UAF on device remove

The pmif driver data that contains the clocks is allocated along with spmi_controller. On device remove, spmi_controller will be freed first, and then devres , including the clocks, will be cleanup. This leads to UAF because putting the clocks will access the clocks in the pmif driver data, which is already freed along with spmi_controller.

This can be reproduced by enabling DEBUG_TEST_DRIVER_REMOVE and building the kernel with KASAN.

Fix the UAF issue by using unmanaged clk_bulk_get() and putting the clocks before freeing spmi_controller.

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/521f28eedd6b14228c46e3b81e3bf9b90c2818d8
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9a3881b1f07db1bb55cb0108e6f05cfd027eaf2e
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e821d50ab5b956ed0effa49faaf29912fd4106d9
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f8dcafcb54632536684336161da8bdd52120f95e
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/521f28eedd6b14228c46e3b81e3bf9b90c2818d8
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9a3881b1f07db1bb55cb0108e6f05cfd027eaf2e
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e821d50ab5b956ed0effa49faaf29912fd4106d9
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f8dcafcb54632536684336161da8bdd52120f95e