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In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/sched: cls_api: fix error handling causing NULL dereference tcf_exts_miss_cookie_base_alloc() calls xa_alloc_cyclic() which can return 1 if the allocation succeeded after wrapping. This was treated as an error, with value 1 returned to caller tcf_exts_init_ex() which sets exts->actions to NULL and returns 1 to caller fl_change(). fl_change() treats err == 1 as success, calling tcf_exts_validate_ex() which calls tcf_action_init() with exts->actions as argument, where it is dereferenced. Example trace: BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000000 CPU: 114 PID: 16151 Comm: handler114 Kdump: loaded Not tainted 5.14.0-503.16.1.el9_5.x86_64 #1 RIP: 0010:tcf_action_init+0x1f8/0x2c0 Call Trace: tcf_action_init+0x1f8/0x2c0 tcf_exts_validate_ex+0x175/0x190 fl_change+0x537/0x1120 [cls_flower]
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).
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.
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).
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();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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