A data corruption vulnerability has been identified in the luksmeta utility when used with the LUKS1 disk encryption format. An attacker with the necessary permissions can exploit this flaw by writing a large amount of metadata to an encrypted device. The utility fails to correctly validate the available space, causing the metadata to overwrite and corrupt the users encrypted data. This action leads to a permanent loss of the stored information. Devices using the LUKS formats other than LUKS1 are not affected by this issue.
Weakness
The product receives input that is expected to specify a quantity (such as size or length), but it does not validate or incorrectly validates that the quantity has the required properties.
Affected Software
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 | RedHat | luksmeta-0:10-1.el10 | * |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | RedHat | luksmeta-0:9-4.el8_10.1 | * |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | RedHat | luksmeta-0:10-1.el9 | * |
| Luksmeta | Ubuntu | plucky | * |
| Luksmeta | Ubuntu | questing | * |
Extended Description
Specified quantities include size, length, frequency, price, rate, number of operations, time, and others. Code may rely on specified quantities to allocate resources, perform calculations, control iteration, etc.
Potential Mitigations
- Assume all input is malicious. Use an “accept known good” input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does.
- When performing input validation, consider all potentially relevant properties, including length, type of input, the full range of acceptable values, missing or extra inputs, syntax, consistency across related fields, and conformance to business rules. As an example of business rule logic, “boat” may be syntactically valid because it only contains alphanumeric characters, but it is not valid if the input is only expected to contain colors such as “red” or “blue.”
- Do not rely exclusively on looking for malicious or malformed inputs. This is likely to miss at least one undesirable input, especially if the code’s environment changes. This can give attackers enough room to bypass the intended validation. However, denylists can be useful for detecting potential attacks or determining which inputs are so malformed that they should be rejected outright.