CVE-2023-53298

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

nfc: fix memory leak of se_io context in nfc_genl_se_io

The callback context for sending/receiving APDUs to/from the selected secure element is allocated inside nfc_genl_se_io and supposed to be eventually freed in se_io_cb callback function. However, there are several error paths where the bwi_timer is not charged to call se_io_cb later, and the cb_context is leaked.

The patch proposes to free the cb_context explicitly on those error paths.

At the moment we cant simply check dev->ops->se_io() return value as it may be negative in both cases: when the timer was charged and was not.

Weakness

The product does not sufficiently track and release allocated memory after it has been used, making the memory unavailable for reallocation and reuse.

Affected Software

Potential Mitigations

• Choose a language or tool that provides automatic memory management, or makes manual memory management less error-prone.
• For example, glibc in Linux provides protection against free of invalid pointers.
• When using Xcode to target OS X or iOS, enable automatic reference counting (ARC) [REF-391].
• To help correctly and consistently manage memory when programming in C++, consider using a smart pointer class such as std::auto_ptr (defined by ISO/IEC ISO/IEC 14882:2003), std::shared_ptr and std::unique_ptr (specified by an upcoming revision of the C++ standard, informally referred to as C++ 1x), or equivalent solutions such as Boost.

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/25ff6f8a5a3b8dc48e8abda6f013e8cc4b14ffea
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/271eed1736426103335c5aac50f15b0f4d236bc0
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5321da6d84b87a34eea441677d649c34bd854169
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8978315cb4bf8878c9c8ec05dafd8f7ff539860d
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/af452e35b9e6a87cd49e54a7a3d60d934b194651
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b2036a252381949d3b743a3de069324ae3028a57
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ba98db08895748c12e5ded52cd1598dce2c79e55
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c494365432dcdc549986f4d9af9eb6190cbdb153