Linux : Security Vulnerabilities, CVEs, Published In 2018

In the Linux kernel 4.15.x through 4.19.x before 4.19.2, map_write() in kernel/user_namespace.c allows privilege escalation because it mishandles nested user namespaces with more than 5 UID or GID ranges. A user who has CAP_SYS_ADMIN in an affected user namespace can bypass access controls on resources outside the namespace, as demonstrated by reading /etc/shadow. This occurs because an ID transformation takes place properly for the namespaced-to-kernel direction but not for the kernel-to-namespaced direction.

In the Linux kernel through 4.14.13, the rds_cmsg_atomic function in net/rds/rdma.c mishandles cases where page pinning fails or an invalid address is supplied, leading to an rds_atomic_free_op NULL pointer dereference.

Linux Kernel version 3.18 to 4.16 incorrectly handles an SG_IO ioctl on /dev/sg0 with dxfer_direction=SG_DXFER_FROM_DEV and an empty 6-byte cmdp. This may lead to copying up to 1000 kernel heap pages to the userspace. This has been fixed upstream in https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/a45b599ad808c3c982fdcdc12b0b8611c2f92824 already. The problem has limited scope, as users don't usually have permissions to access SCSI devices. On the other hand, e.g. the Nero user manual suggests doing `chmod o+r+w /dev/sg*` to make the devices accessible. NOTE: third parties dispute the relevance of this report, noting that the requirement for an attacker to have both the CAP_SYS_ADMIN and CAP_SYS_RAWIO capabilities makes it "virtually impossible to exploit.

The Linux Kernel versions 4.14, 4.15, and 4.16 has a null pointer dereference which can result in an out of memory (OOM) killing of large mlocked processes. The issue arises from an oom killed process's final thread calling exit_mmap(), which calls munlock_vma_pages_all() for mlocked vmas.This can happen synchronously with the oom reaper's unmap_page_range() since the vma's VM_LOCKED bit is cleared before munlocking (to determine if any other vmas share the memory and are mlocked).

The Linux Kernel version 3.18 contains a dangerous feature vulnerability in modify_user_hw_breakpoint() that can result in crash and possibly memory corruption. This attack appear to be exploitable via local code execution and the ability to use ptrace. This vulnerability appears to have been fixed in git commit f67b15037a7a50c57f72e69a6d59941ad90a0f0f.

Linux kernel version after commit bdcf0a423ea1 - 4.15-rc4+, 4.14.8+, 4.9.76+, 4.4.111+ contains a Incorrect Access Control vulnerability in NFS server (nfsd) that can result in remote users reading or writing files they should not be able to via NFS. This attack appear to be exploitable via NFS server must export a filesystem with the "rootsquash" options enabled. This vulnerability appears to have been fixed in after commit 1995266727fa.

Linux Linux kernel version at least v4.8 onwards, probably well before contains a Insufficient input validation vulnerability in bnx2x network card driver that can result in DoS: Network card firmware assertion takes card off-line. This attack appear to be exploitable via An attacker on a must pass a very large, specially crafted packet to the bnx2x card. This can be done from an untrusted guest VM..

In the Linux kernel 4.12, 3.10, 2.6 and possibly earlier versions a race condition vulnerability exists in the sound system, this can lead to a deadlock and denial of service condition.

An issue was discovered in the Linux kernel before 4.18.11. The ipddp_ioctl function in drivers/net/appletalk/ipddp.c allows local users to obtain sensitive kernel address information by leveraging CAP_NET_ADMIN to read the ipddp_route dev and next fields via an SIOCFINDIPDDPRT ioctl call.

An issue was discovered in the Linux kernel before 4.19.9. The USB subsystem mishandles size checks during the reading of an extra descriptor, related to __usb_get_extra_descriptor in drivers/usb/core/usb.c.

An issue was discovered in the Linux kernel before 4.19.3. crypto_report_one() and related functions in crypto/crypto_user.c (the crypto user configuration API) do not fully initialize structures that are copied to userspace, potentially leaking sensitive memory to user programs. NOTE: this is a CVE-2013-2547 regression but with easier exploitability because the attacker does not need a capability (however, the system must have the CONFIG_CRYPTO_USER kconfig option).

In the Linux kernel through 4.19.6, a local user could exploit a use-after-free in the ALSA driver by supplying a malicious USB Sound device (with zero interfaces) that is mishandled in usb_audio_probe in sound/usb/card.c.

The vcpu_scan_ioapic function in arch/x86/kvm/x86.c in the Linux kernel through 4.19.2 allows local users to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and BUG) via crafted system calls that reach a situation where ioapic is uninitialized.

kvm_pv_send_ipi in arch/x86/kvm/lapic.c in the Linux kernel through 4.19.2 allows local users to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and BUG) via crafted system calls that reach a situation where the apic map is uninitialized.

An issue was discovered in the Linux kernel through 4.19. An information leak in cdrom_ioctl_select_disc in drivers/cdrom/cdrom.c could be used by local attackers to read kernel memory because a cast from unsigned long to int interferes with bounds checking. This is similar to CVE-2018-10940 and CVE-2018-16658.

In the Linux kernel before 4.17, a local attacker able to set attributes on an xfs filesystem could make this filesystem non-operational until the next mount by triggering an unchecked error condition during an xfs attribute change, because xfs_attr_shortform_addname in fs/xfs/libxfs/xfs_attr.c mishandles ATTR_REPLACE operations with conversion of an attr from short to long form.

In the Linux kernel through 4.19, a use-after-free can occur due to a race condition between fanout_add from setsockopt and bind on an AF_PACKET socket. This issue exists because of the 15fe076edea787807a7cdc168df832544b58eba6 incomplete fix for a race condition. The code mishandles a certain multithreaded case involving a packet_do_bind unregister action followed by a packet_notifier register action. Later, packet_release operates on only one of the two applicable linked lists. The attacker can achieve Program Counter control.

In the Linux kernel 4.14.x, 4.15.x, 4.16.x, 4.17.x, and 4.18.x before 4.18.13, faulty computation of numeric bounds in the BPF verifier permits out-of-bounds memory accesses because adjust_scalar_min_max_vals in kernel/bpf/verifier.c mishandles 32-bit right shifts.

The userfaultfd implementation in the Linux kernel before 4.19.7 mishandles access control for certain UFFDIO_ ioctl calls, as demonstrated by allowing local users to write data into holes in a tmpfs file (if the user has read-only access to that file, and that file contains holes), related to fs/userfaultfd.c and mm/userfaultfd.c.

drivers/tty/n_tty.c in the Linux kernel before 4.14.11 allows local attackers (who are able to access pseudo terminals) to hang/block further usage of any pseudo terminal devices due to an EXTPROC versus ICANON confusion in TIOCINQ.

Since Linux kernel version 3.2, the mremap() syscall performs TLB flushes after dropping pagetable locks. If a syscall such as ftruncate() removes entries from the pagetables of a task that is in the middle of mremap(), a stale TLB entry can remain for a short time that permits access to a physical page after it has been released back to the page allocator and reused. This is fixed in the following kernel versions: 4.9.135, 4.14.78, 4.18.16, 4.19.

arch/arm64/kvm/guest.c in KVM in the Linux kernel before 4.18.12 on the arm64 platform mishandles the KVM_SET_ON_REG ioctl. This is exploitable by attackers who can create virtual machines. An attacker can arbitrarily redirect the hypervisor flow of control (with full register control). An attacker can also cause a denial of service (hypervisor panic) via an illegal exception return. This occurs because of insufficient restrictions on userspace access to the core register file, and because PSTATE.M validation does not prevent unintended execution modes.

The Linux kernel 4.14.67 mishandles certain interaction among XFRM Netlink messages, IPPROTO_AH packets, and IPPROTO_IP packets, which allows local users to cause a denial of service (memory consumption and system hang) by leveraging root access to execute crafted applications, as demonstrated on CentOS 7.

An issue was discovered in the proc_pid_stack function in fs/proc/base.c in the Linux kernel through 4.18.11. It does not ensure that only root may inspect the kernel stack of an arbitrary task, allowing a local attacker to exploit racy stack unwinding and leak kernel task stack contents.

An issue was discovered in the Linux kernel through 4.18.8. The vmacache_flush_all function in mm/vmacache.c mishandles sequence number overflows. An attacker can trigger a use-after-free (and possibly gain privileges) via certain thread creation, map, unmap, invalidation, and dereference operations.