CVE-2021-47482

MEDIUM

Linux Kernel 2.6.38-4.4.293 - Missing Standardized Error Handling Mechanism in batman-adv Mesh Initialization

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: batman-adv: fix error handling Syzbot reported ODEBUG warning in batadv_nc_mesh_free(). The problem was in wrong error handling in batadv_mesh_init(). Before this patch batadv_mesh_init() was calling batadv_mesh_free() in case of any batadv_*_init() calls failure. This approach may work well, when there is some kind of indicator, which can tell which parts of batadv are initialized; but there isn't any. All written above lead to cleaning up uninitialized fields. Even if we hide ODEBUG warning by initializing bat_priv->nc.work, syzbot was able to hit GPF in batadv_nc_purge_paths(), because hash pointer in still NULL. [1] To fix these bugs we can unwind batadv_*_init() calls one by one. It is good approach for 2 reasons: 1) It fixes bugs on error handling path 2) It improves the performance, since we won't call unneeded batadv_*_free() functions. So, this patch makes all batadv_*_init() clean up all allocated memory before returning with an error to no call correspoing batadv_*_free() and open-codes batadv_mesh_free() with proper order to avoid touching uninitialized fields.

Scores

CVSS v3 5.3
EPSS 0.0074
EPSS Percentile 51.1%
Attack Vector NETWORK
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CISA SSVC

Vulnrichment
Exploitation none
Automatable no
Technical Impact partial

Details

CWE
CWE-544
Status published
Products (20)
Linux/Linux < 2.6.38
Linux/Linux 2.6.38
Linux/Linux 4.14.254 - 4.14.*
Linux/Linux 4.19.215 - 4.19.*
Linux/Linux 4.4.293 - 4.4.*
Linux/Linux 4.9.289 - 4.9.*
Linux/Linux 5.10.77 - 5.10.*
Linux/Linux 5.14.16 - 5.14.*
Linux/Linux 5.15
Linux/Linux 5.4.157 - 5.4.*
... and 10 more
Published May 22, 2024
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026