CVE-2021-47553

HIGH

Linux Kernel - Use of Uninitialized Resource in SCS and KASAN Stack Handling

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sched/scs: Reset task stack state in bringup_cpu() To hot unplug a CPU, the idle task on that CPU calls a few layers of C code before finally leaving the kernel. When KASAN is in use, poisoned shadow is left around for each of the active stack frames, and when shadow call stacks are in use. When shadow call stacks (SCS) are in use the task's saved SCS SP is left pointing at an arbitrary point within the task's shadow call stack. When a CPU is offlined than onlined back into the kernel, this stale state can adversely affect execution. Stale KASAN shadow can alias new stackframes and result in bogus KASAN warnings. A stale SCS SP is effectively a memory leak, and prevents a portion of the shadow call stack being used. Across a number of hotplug cycles the idle task's entire shadow call stack can become unusable. We previously fixed the KASAN issue in commit: e1b77c92981a5222 ("sched/kasan: remove stale KASAN poison after hotplug") ... by removing any stale KASAN stack poison immediately prior to onlining a CPU. Subsequently in commit: f1a0a376ca0c4ef1 ("sched/core: Initialize the idle task with preemption disabled") ... the refactoring left the KASAN and SCS cleanup in one-time idle thread initialization code rather than something invoked prior to each CPU being onlined, breaking both as above. We fixed SCS (but not KASAN) in commit: 63acd42c0d4942f7 ("sched/scs: Reset the shadow stack when idle_task_exit") ... but as this runs in the context of the idle task being offlined it's potentially fragile. To fix these consistently and more robustly, reset the SCS SP and KASAN shadow of a CPU's idle task immediately before we online that CPU in bringup_cpu(). This ensures the idle task always has a consistent state when it is running, and removes the need to so so when exiting an idle task. Whenever any thread is created, dup_task_struct() will give the task a stack which is free of KASAN shadow, and initialize the task's SCS SP, so there's no need to specially initialize either for idle thread within init_idle(), as this was only necessary to handle hotplug cycles. I've tested this on arm64 with: * gcc 11.1.0, defconfig +KASAN_INLINE, KASAN_STACK * clang 12.0.0, defconfig +KASAN_INLINE, KASAN_STACK, SHADOW_CALL_STACK ... offlining and onlining CPUS with: | while true; do | for C in /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/online; do | echo 0 > $C; | echo 1 > $C; | done | done

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-908
Status published
Products (15)
Linux/Linux < 5.14
Linux/Linux 1cb358b3ac1bb43aa8c4283830a84216dda65d39
Linux/Linux 24c79a7e54ccfa29fb8cbf7ed8d1e48ff1ec6e3d
Linux/Linux 3c51d82d0b7862d7d246016c74b4390fb1fa1f11 - e6ee7abd6bfe559ad9989004b34c320fd638c526
Linux/Linux 5.10.50 - 5.10.83
Linux/Linux 5.10.83 - 5.10.*
Linux/Linux 5.12.17 - 5.13
Linux/Linux 5.13.2 - 5.14
Linux/Linux 5.14
Linux/Linux 5.15.6 - 5.15.*
... and 5 more
Published May 24, 2024
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026