Local denial of service in Linux kernel Netlink socket

1) NULL pointer dereference

EUVDB-ID: #VU79585

Risk: Low

CVSSv3.1: 4.8 [CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H/E:U/RL:O/RC:C]

CVE-ID: CVE-2023-3106

CWE-ID: CWE-476 - NULL Pointer Dereference

Exploit availability: No

Description

The vulnerability allows a local user to perform a denial of service (DoS) attack.

The vulnerability exists due to a NULL pointer dereference error within the netlink_dump() function when the Netlink socket receives the message(sendmsg) for the XFRM_MSG_GETSA, XFRM_MSG_GETPOLICY type message, and the DUMP flag is set. A local user can pass specially crafted messages to the socket and perform a denial of service (DoS) attack.

Mitigation

Install update from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

Linux kernel: before 4.8 rc7

External links

http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2221501
http://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/1ba5bf993c6a3142e18e68ea6452b347f9cb5635
http://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-3106

Q & A

Can this vulnerability be exploited remotely?

No. This vulnerability can be exploited locally. The attacker should have authentication credentials and successfully authenticate on the system.

Is there known malware, which exploits this vulnerability?

No. We are not aware of malware exploiting this vulnerability.