CVE-2024-53130 - NULL Pointer Dereference

Severity

55%

Complexity

18%

Confidentiality

60%

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nilfs2: fix null-ptr-deref in block_dirty_buffer tracepoint When using the "block:block_dirty_buffer" tracepoint, mark_buffer_dirty() may cause a NULL pointer dereference, or a general protection fault when KASAN is enabled. This happens because, since the tracepoint was added in mark_buffer_dirty(), it references the dev_t member bh->b_bdev->bd_dev regardless of whether the buffer head has a pointer to a block_device structure. In the current implementation, nilfs_grab_buffer(), which grabs a buffer to read (or create) a block of metadata, including b-tree node blocks, does not set the block device, but instead does so only if the buffer is not in the "uptodate" state for each of its caller block reading functions. However, if the uptodate flag is set on a folio/page, and the buffer heads are detached from it by try_to_free_buffers(), and new buffer heads are then attached by create_empty_buffers(), the uptodate flag may be restored to each buffer without the block device being set to bh->b_bdev, and mark_buffer_dirty() may be called later in that state, resulting in the bug mentioned above. Fix this issue by making nilfs_grab_buffer() always set the block device of the super block structure to the buffer head, regardless of the state of the buffer's uptodate flag.

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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