CVE-2024-42149 - NULL Pointer Dereference

Severity

55%

Complexity

18%

Confidentiality

60%

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: fs: don't misleadingly warn during thaw operations The block device may have been frozen before it was claimed by a filesystem. Concurrently another process might try to mount that frozen block device and has temporarily claimed the block device for that purpose causing a concurrent fs_bdev_thaw() to end up here. The mounter is already about to abort mounting because they still saw an elevanted bdev->bd_fsfreeze_count so get_bdev_super() will return NULL in that case. For example, P1 calls dm_suspend() which calls into bdev_freeze() before the block device has been claimed by the filesystem. This brings bdev->bd_fsfreeze_count to 1 and no call into fs_bdev_freeze() is required. Now P2 tries to mount that frozen block device. It claims it and checks bdev->bd_fsfreeze_count. As it's elevated it aborts mounting. In the meantime P3 called dm_resume(). P3 sees that the block device is already claimed by a filesystem and calls into fs_bdev_thaw(). P3 takes a passive reference and realizes that the filesystem isn't ready yet. P3 puts itself to sleep to wait for the filesystem to become ready. P2 now puts the last active reference to the filesystem and marks it as dying. P3 gets woken, sees that the filesystem is dying and get_bdev_super() fails.

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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