CVE-2018-17154 - NULL Pointer Dereference

Severity

49%

Complexity

39%

Confidentiality

115%

In FreeBSD before 11.2-STABLE(r338987), 11.2-RELEASE-p4, and 11.1-RELEASE-p15, due to insufficient memory checking in the freebsd4_getfsstat system call, a NULL pointer dereference can occur. Unprivileged authenticated local users may be able to cause a denial of service.

In FreeBSD before 11.2-STABLE(r338987), 11.2-RELEASE-p4, and 11.1-RELEASE-p15, due to insufficient memory checking in the freebsd4_getfsstat system call, a NULL pointer dereference can occur. Unprivileged authenticated local users may be able to cause a denial of service.

CVSS 3.0 Base Score 5.5. CVSS Attack Vector: local. CVSS Attack Complexity: low. CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H).

CVSS 2.0 Base Score 4.9. CVSS Attack Vector: local. CVSS Attack Complexity: low. CVSS Vector: (AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:C).

Demo Examples

NULL Pointer Dereference

CWE-476

While there are no complete fixes aside from conscientious programming, the following steps will go a long way to ensure that NULL pointer dereferences do not occur.


               
}
/* make use of pointer1 *//* ... */

If you are working with a multithreaded or otherwise asynchronous environment, ensure that proper locking APIs are used to lock before the if statement; and unlock when it has finished.

NULL Pointer Dereference

CWE-476

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 */

If an attacker provides an address that appears to be well-formed, but the address does not resolve to a hostname, then the call to gethostbyaddr() will return NULL. Since the code does not check the return value from gethostbyaddr (CWE-252), a NULL pointer dereference would then occur in the call to strcpy().

Note that this example is also vulnerable to a buffer overflow (see CWE-119).

NULL Pointer Dereference

CWE-476

In the following code, the programmer assumes that the system always has a property named "cmd" defined. If an attacker can control the program's environment so that "cmd" is not defined, the program throws a NULL pointer exception when it attempts to call the trim() method.


               
cmd = cmd.trim();

NULL Pointer Dereference

CWE-476

This application has registered to handle a URL when sent an intent:


               
}......
}
}
int length = URL.length();
...

The application assumes the URL will always be included in the intent. When the URL is not present, the call to getStringExtra() will return null, thus causing a null pointer exception when length() is called.

Overview

First reported 6 years ago

2018-09-28 13:29:00

Last updated 6 years ago

2018-11-23 14:16:00

Affected Software

FreeBSD 11.1 Patch 15

11.1

FreeBSD

FreeBSD 11.2 Patch 4

11.2

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