In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
drm/drm_file: Fix pid refcounting race
maarten.lankhorst@linux.intel.com, Maxime Ripard mripard@kernel.org, Thomas Zimmermann tzimmermann@suse.de
filp->pid is supposed to be a refcounted pointer; however, before this patch, drm_file_update_pid() only increments the refcount of a struct pid after storing a pointer to it in filp->pid and dropping the dev->filelist_mutex, making the following race possible:
process A process B ========= ========= begin drm_file_update_pid mutex_lock(&dev->filelist_mutex) rcu_replace_pointer(filp->pid, <pid B>, 1) mutex_unlock(&dev->filelist_mutex) begin drm_file_update_pid mutex_lock(&dev->filelist_mutex) rcu_replace_pointer(filp->pid, <pid A>, 1) mutex_unlock(&dev->filelist_mutex) get_pid(<pid A>) synchronize_rcu() put_pid(<pid B>) *** pid B reaches refcount 0 and is freed here *** get_pid(<pid B>) *** UAF *** synchronize_rcu() put_pid(<pid A>)
As far as I know, this race can only occur with CONFIG_PREEMPT_RCU=y because it requires RCU to detect a quiescent state in code that is not explicitly calling into the scheduler.
This race leads to use-after-free of a "struct pid". It is probably somewhat hard to hit because process A has to pass through a synchronize_rcu() operation while process B is between mutex_unlock() and get_pid().
Fix it by ensuring that by the time a pointer to the current task's pid is stored in the file, an extra reference to the pid has been taken.
This fix also removes the condition for synchronize_rcu(); I think that optimization is unnecessary complexity, since in that case we would usually have bailed out on the lockless check above.
Exploitability
AV:LAC:HPR:LUI:NScope
S:UImpact
C:HI:HA:H7/CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H