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

ext4: avoid OOB when system.data xattr changes underneath the filesystem

When looking up for an entry in an inlined directory, if e_value_offs is changed underneath the filesystem by some change in the block device, it will lead to an out-of-bounds access that KASAN detects as an UAF.

EXT4-fs (loop0): mounted filesystem 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 r/w without journal. Quota mode: none. loop0: detected capacity change from 2048 to 2047

BUG: KASAN: use-after-free in ext4_search_dir+0xf2/0x1c0 fs/ext4/namei.c:1500 Read of size 1 at addr ffff88803e91130f by task syz-executor269/5103

CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 5103 Comm: syz-executor269 Not tainted 6.11.0-rc4-syzkaller #0 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS 1.16.3-debian-1.16.3-2~bpo12+1 04/01/2014 Call Trace: __dump_stack lib/dump_stack.c:93 [inline] dump_stack_lvl+0x241/0x360 lib/dump_stack.c:119 print_address_description mm/kasan/report.c:377 [inline] print_report+0x169/0x550 mm/kasan/report.c:488 kasan_report+0x143/0x180 mm/kasan/report.c:601 ext4_search_dir+0xf2/0x1c0 fs/ext4/namei.c:1500 ext4_find_inline_entry+0x4be/0x5e0 fs/ext4/inline.c:1697 __ext4_find_entry+0x2b4/0x1b30 fs/ext4/namei.c:1573 ext4_lookup_entry fs/ext4/namei.c:1727 [inline] ext4_lookup+0x15f/0x750 fs/ext4/namei.c:1795 lookup_one_qstr_excl+0x11f/0x260 fs/namei.c:1633 filename_create+0x297/0x540 fs/namei.c:3980 do_symlinkat+0xf9/0x3a0 fs/namei.c:4587 __do_sys_symlinkat fs/namei.c:4610 [inline] __se_sys_symlinkat fs/namei.c:4607 [inline] __x64_sys_symlinkat+0x95/0xb0 fs/namei.c:4607 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:52 [inline] do_syscall_64+0xf3/0x230 arch/x86/entry/common.c:83 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f RIP: 0033:0x7f3e73ced469 Code: 28 00 00 00 75 05 48 83 c4 28 c3 e8 21 18 00 00 90 48 89 f8 48 89 f7 48 89 d6 48 89 ca 4d 89 c2 4d 89 c8 4c 8b 4c 24 08 0f 05 <48> 3d 01 f0 ff ff 73 01 c3 48 c7 c1 b8 ff ff ff f7 d8 64 89 01 48 RSP: 002b:00007fff4d40c258 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 000000000000010a RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 0032656c69662f2e RCX: 00007f3e73ced469 RDX: 0000000020000200 RSI: 00000000ffffff9c RDI: 00000000200001c0 RBP: 0000000000000000 R08: 00007fff4d40c290 R09: 00007fff4d40c290 R10: 0023706f6f6c2f76 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 00007fff4d40c27c R13: 0000000000000003 R14: 431bde82d7b634db R15: 00007fff4d40c2b0

Calling ext4_xattr_ibody_find right after reading the inode with ext4_get_inode_loc will lead to a check of the validity of the xattrs, avoiding this problem.

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/2a6579ef5f2576a940125729f7409cc182f1c8df
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/371d0bacecd529f887ea2547333d9173e7bcdc0a
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5b076d37e8d99918e9294bd6b35a8bbb436819b0
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7fc22c3b3ffc0e952f5e0062dd11aa6ae76affba
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8adf0eb4e361a9e060d54f4bd0ac9c5d85277d20
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/be2e9b111e2790962cc66a177869b4e9717b4e29
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c6b72f5d82b1017bad80f9ebf502832fc321d796
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ccb8c18076e2e630fea23fbec583cdad61787fc5
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ea32883e4a03ed575a2eb7a66542022312bde477