CVE-2021-47131

HIGH

Linux Kernel 4.18-5.12 - Use-After-Free in TLS Device Offload Context

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/tls: Fix use-after-free after the TLS device goes down and up When a netdev with active TLS offload goes down, tls_device_down is called to stop the offload and tear down the TLS context. However, the socket stays alive, and it still points to the TLS context, which is now deallocated. If a netdev goes up, while the connection is still active, and the data flow resumes after a number of TCP retransmissions, it will lead to a use-after-free of the TLS context. This commit addresses this bug by keeping the context alive until its normal destruction, and implements the necessary fallbacks, so that the connection can resume in software (non-offloaded) kTLS mode. On the TX side tls_sw_fallback is used to encrypt all packets. The RX side already has all the necessary fallbacks, because receiving non-decrypted packets is supported. The thing needed on the RX side is to block resync requests, which are normally produced after receiving non-decrypted packets. The necessary synchronization is implemented for a graceful teardown: first the fallbacks are deployed, then the driver resources are released (it used to be possible to have a tls_dev_resync after tls_dev_del). A new flag called TLS_RX_DEV_DEGRADED is added to indicate the fallback mode. It's used to skip the RX resync logic completely, as it becomes useless, and some objects may be released (for example, resync_async, which is allocated and freed by the driver).

Scores

CVSS v3 7.8
EPSS 0.0026
EPSS Percentile 17.1%
Attack Vector LOCAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

CISA SSVC

Vulnrichment
Exploitation none
Automatable no
Technical Impact partial

Details

CWE
CWE-416
Status published
Products (10)
Linux/Linux < 4.18
Linux/Linux 4.18
Linux/Linux 5.10.43 - 5.10.*
Linux/Linux 5.12.10 - 5.12.*
Linux/Linux 5.13
Linux/Linux e8f69799810c32dd40c6724d829eccc70baad07f - 0f1e6fe66977a864fe850522316f713d7b926fd9
Linux/Linux e8f69799810c32dd40c6724d829eccc70baad07f - c55dcdd435aa6c6ad6ccac0a4c636d010ee367a4
Linux/Linux e8f69799810c32dd40c6724d829eccc70baad07f - f1d4184f128dede82a59a841658ed40d4e6d3aa2
linux/linux_kernel 5.13 rc1 (4 CPE variants)
linux/linux_kernel 4.18 - 5.10.43
Published Mar 15, 2024
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026