CVE-2024-46682 - NULL Pointer Dereference

Severity

55%

Complexity

18%

Confidentiality

60%

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nfsd: prevent panic for nfsv4.0 closed files in nfs4_show_open Prior to commit 3f29cc82a84c ("nfsd: split sc_status out of sc_type") states_show() relied on sc_type field to be of valid type before calling into a subfunction to show content of a particular stateid. From that commit, we split the validity of the stateid into sc_status and no longer changed sc_type to 0 while unhashing the stateid. This resulted in kernel oopsing for nfsv4.0 opens that stay around and in nfs4_show_open() would derefence sc_file which was NULL. Instead, for closed open stateids forgo displaying information that relies of having a valid sc_file. To reproduce: mount the server with 4.0, read and close a file and then on the server cat /proc/fs/nfsd/clients/2/states [ 513.590804] Call trace: [ 513.590925] _raw_spin_lock+0xcc/0x160 [ 513.591119] nfs4_show_open+0x78/0x2c0 [nfsd] [ 513.591412] states_show+0x44c/0x488 [nfsd] [ 513.591681] seq_read_iter+0x5d8/0x760 [ 513.591896] seq_read+0x188/0x208 [ 513.592075] vfs_read+0x148/0x470 [ 513.592241] ksys_read+0xcc/0x178

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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