Vulnerability · Published Mar 4, 2024 · Assigned by Linux

CVE-2021-47089kfence: fix memory leak when cat kfence objects

Low 3.3

In plain English

A low-severity security flaw in Linux from Linux. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.2% (higher than 9% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.

Severity (CVSS 3.1)3.3Low
Exploit odds (30 days)0.2%top 91.3% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo reportsCISA SSVC: none
Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known

Official description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: kfence: fix memory leak when cat kfence objects Hulk robot reported a kmemleak problem: unreferenced object 0xffff93d1d8cc02e8 (size 248): comm "cat", pid 23327, jiffies 4624670141 (age 495992.217s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 00 40 85 19 d4 93 ff ff 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 .@.............. 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ backtrace: seq_open+0x2a/0x80 full_proxy_open+0x167/0x1e0 do_dentry_open+0x1e1/0x3a0 path_openat+0x961/0xa20 do_filp_open+0xae/0x120 do_sys_openat2+0x216/0x2f0 do_sys_open+0x57/0x80 do_syscall_64+0x33/0x40 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xa9 unreferenced object 0xffff93d419854000 (size 4096): comm "cat", pid 23327, jiffies 4624670141 (age 495992.217s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 6b 66 65 6e 63 65 2d 23 32 35 30 3a 20 30 78 30 kfence-#250: 0x0 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 37 35 34 62 64 61 31 32 2d 0000000754bda12- backtrace: seq_read_iter+0x313/0x440 seq_read+0x14b/0x1a0 full_proxy_read+0x56/0x80 vfs_read+0xa5/0x1b0 ksys_read+0xa0/0xf0 do_syscall_64+0x33/0x40 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xa9 I find that we can easily reproduce this problem with the following commands: cat /sys/kernel/debug/kfence/objects echo scan > /sys/kernel/debug/kmemleak cat /sys/kernel/debug/kmemleak The leaked memory is allocated in the stack below: do_syscall_64 do_sys_open do_dentry_open full_proxy_open seq_open ---> alloc seq_file vfs_read full_proxy_read seq_read seq_read_iter traverse ---> alloc seq_buf And it should have been released in the following process: do_syscall_64 syscall_exit_to_user_mode exit_to_user_mode_prepare task_work_run ____fput __fput full_proxy_release ---> free here However, the release function corresponding to file_operations is not implemented in kfence. As a result, a memory leak occurs. Therefore, the solution to this problem is to implement the corresponding release function.

Affected packages & fixed versions

EcosystemPackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian:12linux5.15.15-1DEBIAN-CVE-2021-47089
Debian:13linux5.15.15-1DEBIAN-CVE-2021-47089
Debian:14linux5.15.15-1DEBIAN-CVE-2021-47089
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-allwinner-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2021-47089
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-aws-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2021-47089
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-aws-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2021-47089
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2021-47089
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2021-47089
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-fde-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2021-47089
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-fde-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2021-47089
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcp-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2021-47089
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcp-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2021-47089
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-hwe-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2021-47089
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-hwe-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2021-47089
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2021-47089
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2021-47089
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2021-47089
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-5.17no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2021-47089
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.0no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2021-47089
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.1no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2021-47089
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-riscvno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2021-47089
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-riscv-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2021-47089
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-starfive-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2021-47089
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-starfive-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2021-47089

Affected products (as reported)

VendorProductVersions
Linux Linux 0ce20dd840897b12ae70869c69f1ba34d6d16965 – before 2f06c8293d27f6337f907042c602c9c953988c480ce20dd840897b12ae70869c69f1ba34d6d16965 – before 0129ab1f268b6cf88825eae819b9b84aa0a85634
Linux Linux 5.12

References