CVE-2024-26923

MEDIUM

Linux Kernel 2.6.23-6.8.6 - AF_UNIX Garbage Collector Race Condition

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: af_unix: Fix garbage collector racing against connect() Garbage collector does not take into account the risk of embryo getting enqueued during the garbage collection. If such embryo has a peer that carries SCM_RIGHTS, two consecutive passes of scan_children() may see a different set of children. Leading to an incorrectly elevated inflight count, and then a dangling pointer within the gc_inflight_list. sockets are AF_UNIX/SOCK_STREAM S is an unconnected socket L is a listening in-flight socket bound to addr, not in fdtable V's fd will be passed via sendmsg(), gets inflight count bumped connect(S, addr) sendmsg(S, [V]); close(V) __unix_gc() ---------------- ------------------------- ----------- NS = unix_create1() skb1 = sock_wmalloc(NS) L = unix_find_other(addr) unix_state_lock(L) unix_peer(S) = NS // V count=1 inflight=0 NS = unix_peer(S) skb2 = sock_alloc() skb_queue_tail(NS, skb2[V]) // V became in-flight // V count=2 inflight=1 close(V) // V count=1 inflight=1 // GC candidate condition met for u in gc_inflight_list: if (total_refs == inflight_refs) add u to gc_candidates // gc_candidates={L, V} for u in gc_candidates: scan_children(u, dec_inflight) // embryo (skb1) was not // reachable from L yet, so V's // inflight remains unchanged __skb_queue_tail(L, skb1) unix_state_unlock(L) for u in gc_candidates: if (u.inflight) scan_children(u, inc_inflight_move_tail) // V count=1 inflight=2 (!) If there is a GC-candidate listening socket, lock/unlock its state. This makes GC wait until the end of any ongoing connect() to that socket. After flipping the lock, a possibly SCM-laden embryo is already enqueued. And if there is another embryo coming, it can not possibly carry SCM_RIGHTS. At this point, unix_inflight() can not happen because unix_gc_lock is already taken. Inflight graph remains unaffected.

Scores

CVSS v3 4.7
EPSS 0.0001
EPSS Percentile 2.0%
Attack Vector LOCAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CISA SSVC

Vulnrichment
Exploitation none
Automatable no
Technical Impact total

Details

CWE
CWE-362
Status published
Products (28)
debian/debian_linux 10.0
linux/Kernel 2.6.23 - 4.19.314linux
linux/Kernel 4.20.0 - 5.4.275linux
linux/Kernel 5.11.0 - 5.15.156linux
linux/Kernel 5.16.0 - 6.1.87linux
linux/Kernel 5.5.0 - 5.10.216linux
linux/Kernel 6.2.0 - 6.6.28linux
linux/Kernel 6.7.0 - 6.8.7linux
Linux/Linux < 2.6.23
Linux/Linux 1fd05ba5a2f2aa8e7b9b52ef55df850e2e7d54c9 - 2e2a03787f4f0abc0072350654ab0ef3324d9db3
... and 18 more
Published Apr 25, 2024
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026