CVE-2024-36925 - NULL Pointer Dereference

Severity

55%

Complexity

18%

Confidentiality

60%

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: swiotlb: initialise restricted pool list_head when SWIOTLB_DYNAMIC=y Using restricted DMA pools (CONFIG_DMA_RESTRICTED_POOL=y) in conjunction with dynamic SWIOTLB (CONFIG_SWIOTLB_DYNAMIC=y) leads to the following crash when initialising the restricted pools at boot-time: | Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 0000000000000008 | Internal error: Oops: 0000000096000005 [#1] PREEMPT SMP | pc : rmem_swiotlb_device_init+0xfc/0x1ec | lr : rmem_swiotlb_device_init+0xf0/0x1ec | Call trace: | rmem_swiotlb_device_init+0xfc/0x1ec | of_reserved_mem_device_init_by_idx+0x18c/0x238 | of_dma_configure_id+0x31c/0x33c | platform_dma_configure+0x34/0x80 faddr2line reveals that the crash is in the list validation code: include/linux/list.h:83 include/linux/rculist.h:79 include/linux/rculist.h:106 kernel/dma/swiotlb.c:306 kernel/dma/swiotlb.c:1695 because add_mem_pool() is trying to list_add_rcu() to a NULL 'mem->pools'. Fix the crash by initialising the 'mem->pools' list_head in rmem_swiotlb_device_init() before calling add_mem_pool().

CVSS 3.1 Base Score 5.5. CVSS Attack Vector: local. CVSS Attack Complexity: low. CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H).

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.

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