Linux KernelOperating system · Linux

CVE-2022-48853

MEDIUM · 5.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2024-07-16
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 4.9.320 / 4.14.281 or later.
See remediation →
57/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: swiotlb: fix info leak with DMA_FROM_DEVICE The problem I'm addressing was discovered by the LTP test covering cve-2018-1000204. A short description of what happens follows: 1) The test case issues a command code 00 (TEST UNIT READY) via the SG_IO interface with: dxfer_len == 524288, dxdfer_dir == SG_DXFER_FROM_DEV and a corresponding dxferp. The peculiar thing about this is that TUR is not reading from the device. 2) In sg_start_req() the invocation of blk_rq_map_user() effectively bounces the user-space buffer. As if the device was to transfer into it. Since commit a45b599ad808 ("scsi: sg: allocate with __GFP_ZERO in sg_build_indirect()") we make sure this first bounce buffer is allocated with GFP_ZERO. 3) For the rest of the story we keep ignoring that we have a TUR, so the device won't touch the buffer we prepare as if the we had a DMA_FROM_DEVICE type of situation. My setup uses a virtio-scsi device and the buffer allocated by SG is mapped by the function virtqueue_add_split() which uses DMA_FROM_DEVICE for the "in" sgs (here scatter-gather and not scsi generics). This mapping involves bouncing via the swiotlb (we need swiotlb to do virtio in protected guest like s390 Secure Execution, or AMD SEV). 4) When the SCSI TUR is done, we first copy back the content of the second (that is swiotlb) bounce buffer (which most likely contains some previous IO data), to the first bounce buffer, which contains all zeros. Then we copy back the content of the first bounce buffer to the user-space buffer. 5) The test case detects that the buffer, which it zero-initialized, ain't all zeros and fails. One can argue that this is an swiotlb problem, because without swiotlb we leak all zeros, and the swiotlb should be transparent in a sense that it does not affect the outcome (if all other participants are well behaved). Copying the content of the original buffer into the swiotlb buffer is the only way I can think of to make swiotlb transparent in such scenarios. So let's do just that if in doubt, but allow the driver to tell us that the whole mapped buffer is going to be overwritten, in which case we can preserve the old behavior and avoid the performance impact of the extra bounce.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis

A detailed technical summary for this CVE is being prepared.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Linux KernelOperating system
Affected:< 4.9.320>= 4.10, < 4.14.281>= 4.15, < 4.19.245>= 4.20, < 5.4.189>= 5.5, < 5.10.110>= 5.11, < 5.15.29>= 5.16, < 5.16.15

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
None

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 4.9.320 / 4.14.281 / 4.19.245 or later
Fixed in 4.9.3204.14.2814.19.245
Vendor patch git.kernel.org →
Recommended fix High confidence

4.9.320, 4.14.281, 4.19.245, 5.4.189, or any later stable kernel version

  1. Upgrade the Linux kernel to version 4.9.320 or later if using the 4.9.x branch
  2. Alternatively, upgrade to version 4.14.281 or later if using the 4.14.x branch
  3. Alternatively, upgrade to version 4.19.245 or later if using the 4.19.x branch
  4. Alternatively, upgrade to version 5.4.189 or later if using the 5.4.x branch
  5. Alternatively, upgrade to version 5.5.0 or later if using a newer stable branch
  6. After kernel upgrade, verify swiotlb is functioning correctly, especially for virtio-scsi or other DMA operations requiring swiotlb bouncing
Caveat Kernel upgrades may introduce regressions; however this is a targeted security fix with minimal behavioral change scope

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $1,600. Get the upgrade done

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

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