CVE-2024-41059 - Use of Uninitialized Resource

Severity

71%

Complexity

18%

Confidentiality

86%

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: hfsplus: fix uninit-value in copy_name [syzbot reported] BUG: KMSAN: uninit-value in sized_strscpy+0xc4/0x160 sized_strscpy+0xc4/0x160 copy_name+0x2af/0x320 fs/hfsplus/xattr.c:411 hfsplus_listxattr+0x11e9/0x1a50 fs/hfsplus/xattr.c:750 vfs_listxattr fs/xattr.c:493 [inline] listxattr+0x1f3/0x6b0 fs/xattr.c:840 path_listxattr fs/xattr.c:864 [inline] __do_sys_listxattr fs/xattr.c:876 [inline] __se_sys_listxattr fs/xattr.c:873 [inline] __x64_sys_listxattr+0x16b/0x2f0 fs/xattr.c:873 x64_sys_call+0x2ba0/0x3b50 arch/x86/include/generated/asm/syscalls_64.h:195 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:52 [inline] do_syscall_64+0xcf/0x1e0 arch/x86/entry/common.c:83 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f Uninit was created at: slab_post_alloc_hook mm/slub.c:3877 [inline] slab_alloc_node mm/slub.c:3918 [inline] kmalloc_trace+0x57b/0xbe0 mm/slub.c:4065 kmalloc include/linux/slab.h:628 [inline] hfsplus_listxattr+0x4cc/0x1a50 fs/hfsplus/xattr.c:699 vfs_listxattr fs/xattr.c:493 [inline] listxattr+0x1f3/0x6b0 fs/xattr.c:840 path_listxattr fs/xattr.c:864 [inline] __do_sys_listxattr fs/xattr.c:876 [inline] __se_sys_listxattr fs/xattr.c:873 [inline] __x64_sys_listxattr+0x16b/0x2f0 fs/xattr.c:873 x64_sys_call+0x2ba0/0x3b50 arch/x86/include/generated/asm/syscalls_64.h:195 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:52 [inline] do_syscall_64+0xcf/0x1e0 arch/x86/entry/common.c:83 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f [Fix] When allocating memory to strbuf, initialize memory to 0.

CVSS 3.1 Base Score 7.1. CVSS Attack Vector: local. CVSS Attack Complexity: low. CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H).

Demo Examples

Use of Uninitialized Resource

CWE-908

Here, a boolean initiailized field is consulted to ensure that initialization tasks are only completed once. However, the field is mistakenly set to true during static initialization, so the initialization code is never reached.


               
}
initialized = true;// perform initialization tasks

Use of Uninitialized Resource

CWE-908

The following code intends to limit certain operations to the administrator only.


               
}
$uid = ExtractUserID($state);
# do stuff
DoAdminThings();

If the application is unable to extract the state information - say, due to a database timeout - then the $uid variable will not be explicitly set by the programmer. This will cause $uid to be regarded as equivalent to "0" in the conditional, allowing the original user to perform administrator actions. Even if the attacker cannot directly influence the state data, unexpected errors could cause incorrect privileges to be assigned to a user just by accident.

Use of Uninitialized Resource

CWE-908

The following code intends to concatenate a string to a variable and print the string.


               
printf("%s", str);

This might seem innocent enough, but str was not initialized, so it contains random memory. As a result, str[0] might not contain the null terminator, so the copy might start at an offset other than 0. The consequences can vary, depending on the underlying memory.

If a null terminator is found before str[8], then some bytes of random garbage will be printed before the "hello world" string. The memory might contain sensitive information from previous uses, such as a password (which might occur as a result of CWE-14 or CWE-244). In this example, it might not be a big deal, but consider what could happen if large amounts of memory are printed out before the null terminator is found.

If a null terminator isn't found before str[8], then a buffer overflow could occur, since strcat will first look for the null terminator, then copy 12 bytes starting with that location. Alternately, a buffer over-read might occur (CWE-126) if a null terminator isn't found before the end of the memory segment is reached, leading to a segmentation fault and crash.

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