Vulnerabilities > CVE-2022-48921 - Race Condition vulnerability in Linux Kernel
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sched/fair: Fix fault in reweight_entity Syzbot found a GPF in reweight_entity. This has been bisected to commit 4ef0c5c6b5ba ("kernel/sched: Fix sched_fork() access an invalid sched_task_group") There is a race between sched_post_fork() and setpriority(PRIO_PGRP) within a thread group that causes a null-ptr-deref in reweight_entity() in CFS. The scenario is that the main process spawns number of new threads, which then call setpriority(PRIO_PGRP, 0, -20), wait, and exit. For each of the new threads the copy_process() gets invoked, which adds the new task_struct and calls sched_post_fork() for it. In the above scenario there is a possibility that setpriority(PRIO_PGRP) and set_one_prio() will be called for a thread in the group that is just being created by copy_process(), and for which the sched_post_fork() has not been executed yet. This will trigger a null pointer dereference in reweight_entity(), as it will try to access the run queue pointer, which hasn't been set. Before the mentioned change the cfs_rq pointer for the task has been set in sched_fork(), which is called much earlier in copy_process(), before the new task is added to the thread_group. Now it is done in the sched_post_fork(), which is called after that. To fix the issue the remove the update_load param from the update_load param() function and call reweight_task() only if the task flag doesn't have the TASK_NEW flag set.
Vulnerable Configurations
Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)
Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)
- Leveraging Race Conditions This attack targets a race condition occurring when multiple processes access and manipulate the same resource concurrently and the outcome of the execution depends on the particular order in which the access takes place. The attacker can leverage a race condition by "running the race", modifying the resource and modifying the normal execution flow. For instance a race condition can occur while accessing a file, the attacker can trick the system by replacing the original file with his version and cause the system to read the malicious file.
- Leveraging Time-of-Check and Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) Race Conditions This attack targets a race condition occurring between the time of check (state) for a resource and the time of use of a resource. The typical example is the file access. The attacker can leverage a file access race condition by "running the race", meaning that he would modify the resource between the first time the target program accesses the file and the time the target program uses the file. During that period of time, the attacker could do something such as replace the file and cause an escalation of privilege.