CVE-2016-1583 - Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

Severity

72%

Complexity

39%

Confidentiality

165%

The ecryptfs_privileged_open function in fs/ecryptfs/kthread.c in the Linux kernel before 4.6.3 allows local users to gain privileges or cause a denial of service (stack memory consumption) via vectors involving crafted mmap calls for /proc pathnames, leading to recursive pagefault handling.

The ecryptfs_privileged_open function in fs/ecryptfs/kthread.c in the Linux kernel before 4.6.3 allows local users to gain privileges or cause a denial of service (stack memory consumption) via vectors involving crafted mmap calls for /proc pathnames, leading to recursive pagefault handling.

CVSS 3.0 Base Score 7.8. CVSS Attack Vector: local. CVSS Attack Complexity: low. CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H).

CVSS 2.0 Base Score 7.2. CVSS Attack Vector: local. CVSS Attack Complexity: low. CVSS Vector: (AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C).

Demo Examples

Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

CWE-119

This example takes an IP address from a user, verifies that it is well formed and then looks up the hostname and copies it into a buffer.


               
}
strcpy(hostname, hp->h_name);/*routine that ensures user_supplied_addr is in the right format for conversion */

This function allocates a buffer of 64 bytes to store the hostname, however there is no guarantee that the hostname will not be larger than 64 bytes. If an attacker specifies an address which resolves to a very large hostname, then we may overwrite sensitive data or even relinquish control flow to the attacker.

Note that this example also contains an unchecked return value (CWE-252) that can lead to a NULL pointer dereference (CWE-476).

Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

CWE-119

This example applies an encoding procedure to an input string and stores it into a buffer.


               
}
return dst_buf;
die("user string too long, die evil hacker!");
else dst_buf[dst_index++] = user_supplied_string[i];
dst_buf[dst_index++] = ';';
/* encode to < */

The programmer attempts to encode the ampersand character in the user-controlled string, however the length of the string is validated before the encoding procedure is applied. Furthermore, the programmer assumes encoding expansion will only expand a given character by a factor of 4, while the encoding of the ampersand expands by 5. As a result, when the encoding procedure expands the string it is possible to overflow the destination buffer if the attacker provides a string of many ampersands.

Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

CWE-119

The following example asks a user for an offset into an array to select an item.


               
}
printf("You selected %s\n", items[index-1]);

The programmer allows the user to specify which element in the list to select, however an attacker can provide an out-of-bounds offset, resulting in a buffer over-read (CWE-126).

Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

CWE-119

In the following code, the method retrieves a value from an array at a specific array index location that is given as an input parameter to the method


               
}
return value;// check that the array index is less than the maximum// length of the array
value = array[index];// get the value at the specified index of the array
// if array index is invalid then output error message// and return value indicating error
value = -1;

However, this method only verifies that the given array index is less than the maximum length of the array but does not check for the minimum value (CWE-839). This will allow a negative value to be accepted as the input array index, which will result in a out of bounds read (CWE-125) and may allow access to sensitive memory. The input array index should be checked to verify that is within the maximum and minimum range required for the array (CWE-129). In this example the if statement should be modified to include a minimum range check, as shown below.


               
...// check that the array index is within the correct// range of values for the array

Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

CWE-119

Windows provides the _mbs family of functions to perform various operations on multibyte strings. When these functions are passed a malformed multibyte string, such as a string containing a valid leading byte followed by a single null byte, they can read or write past the end of the string buffer causing a buffer overflow. The following functions all pose a risk of buffer overflow: _mbsinc _mbsdec _mbsncat _mbsncpy _mbsnextc _mbsnset _mbsrev _mbsset _mbsstr _mbstok _mbccpy _mbslen

Overview

Type

Linux

First reported 8 years ago

2016-06-27 10:59:00

Last updated 6 years ago

2018-12-06 22:29:00

Affected Software

Linux Kernel

Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12.0

12.0

Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12.0

12.0

Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12.0 Service Pack 1

12.0

Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Software Development Kit 12.0 Service Pack 1

12.0

Canonical Ubuntu Linux 12.04 LTS

12.04

Canonical Ubuntu Linux 14.04 LTS (Long-Term Support)

14.04

Canonical Ubuntu Linux 15.10

15.10

Canonical Ubuntu Linux 16.04 LTS (Long-Term Support)

16.04

References

http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=2f36db71009304b3f0b95afacd8eba1f9f046b87

Vendor Advisory

http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=f5364c150aa645b3d7daa21b5c0b9feaa1c9cd6d

Vendor Advisory

SUSE-SU-2016:1596

Third Party Advisory

openSUSE-SU-2016:1641

SUSE-SU-2016:1672

Third Party Advisory

SUSE-SU-2016:1696

Third Party Advisory

SUSE-SU-2016:1937

Third Party Advisory

SUSE-SU-2016:1961

SUSE-SU-2016:1985

SUSE-SU-2016:1994

SUSE-SU-2016:1995

SUSE-SU-2016:2000

SUSE-SU-2016:2002

SUSE-SU-2016:2005

SUSE-SU-2016:2006

SUSE-SU-2016:2007

SUSE-SU-2016:2009

SUSE-SU-2016:2010

SUSE-SU-2016:2014

SUSE-SU-2016:2105

openSUSE-SU-2016:2184

http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/137560/Linux-ecryptfs-Stack-Overflow.html

Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry

RHSA-2016:2124

RHSA-2016:2766

DSA-3607

[oss-security] 20160610 [vs-plain] Linux kernel stack overflow via ecryptfs and /proc/$pid/environ

Third Party Advisory

[oss-security] 20160622 Re: [vs-plain] Linux kernel stack overflow via ecryptfs and /proc/$pid/environ

Third Party Advisory

91157

1036763

USN-2996-1

Third Party Advisory

USN-2997-1

Third Party Advisory

USN-2998-1

Third Party Advisory

USN-2999-1

Third Party Advisory

USN-3000-1

Third Party Advisory

USN-3001-1

Third Party Advisory

USN-3002-1

Third Party Advisory

USN-3003-1

Third Party Advisory

USN-3004-1

Third Party Advisory

USN-3005-1

Third Party Advisory

USN-3006-1

Third Party Advisory

USN-3007-1

Third Party Advisory

USN-3008-1

Third Party Advisory

RHSA-2017:2760

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project-zero/issues/detail?id=836

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1344721

Issue Tracking, VDB Entry

https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/2f36db71009304b3f0b95afacd8eba1f9f046b87

Vendor Advisory

https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/f0fe970df3838c202ef6c07a4c2b36838ef0a88b

https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/f5364c150aa645b3d7daa21b5c0b9feaa1c9cd6d

Vendor Advisory

39992

Exploit, Third Party Advisory, VDB Entry

https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v4.x/ChangeLog-4.6.3

Release Notes

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