CVE-2021-46990

MEDIUM

Linux Kernel Entry Flush Barrier Toggling - Memory Corruption

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: powerpc/64s: Fix crashes when toggling entry flush barrier The entry flush mitigation can be enabled/disabled at runtime via a debugfs file (entry_flush), which causes the kernel to patch itself to enable/disable the relevant mitigations. However depending on which mitigation we're using, it may not be safe to do that patching while other CPUs are active. For example the following crash: sleeper[15639]: segfault (11) at c000000000004c20 nip c000000000004c20 lr c000000000004c20 Shows that we returned to userspace with a corrupted LR that points into the kernel, due to executing the partially patched call to the fallback entry flush (ie. we missed the LR restore). Fix it by doing the patching under stop machine. The CPUs that aren't doing the patching will be spinning in the core of the stop machine logic. That is currently sufficient for our purposes, because none of the patching we do is to that code or anywhere in the vicinity.

Scores

CVSS v3 5.5
EPSS 0.0023
EPSS Percentile 14.0%
Attack Vector LOCAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CISA SSVC

Vulnrichment
Exploitation none
Automatable no
Technical Impact partial

Details

Status published
Products (29)
Linux/Linux < 5.10
Linux/Linux 4.14.208 - 4.14.233
Linux/Linux 4.14.233 - 4.14.*
Linux/Linux 4.19.159 - 4.19.191
Linux/Linux 4.19.191 - 4.19.*
Linux/Linux 4.4.245 - 4.4.269
Linux/Linux 4.4.269 - 4.4.*
Linux/Linux 4.9.245 - 4.9.269
Linux/Linux 4.9.269 - 4.9.*
Linux/Linux 4a1e90af718d1489ffcecc8f52486c4f5dc0f7a6 - 8382b15864e5014261b4f36c2aa89723612ee058
... and 19 more
Published Feb 28, 2024
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026