Vulnerabilities > CVE-2024-44956 - Improper Locking vulnerability in Linux Kernel
Attack vector
LOCAL Attack complexity
LOW Privileges required
LOW Confidentiality impact
NONE Integrity impact
NONE Availability impact
HIGH Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm/xe/preempt_fence: enlarge the fence critical section It is really easy to introduce subtle deadlocks in preempt_fence_work_func() since we operate on single global ordered-wq for signalling our preempt fences behind the scenes, so even though we signal a particular fence, everything in the callback should be in the fence critical section, since blocking in the callback will prevent other published fences from signalling. If we enlarge the fence critical section to cover the entire callback, then lockdep should be able to understand this better, and complain if we grab a sensitive lock like vm->lock, which is also held when waiting on preempt fences.
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 Race Conditions via Symbolic Links This attack leverages the use of symbolic links (Symlinks) in order to write to sensitive files. An attacker can create a Symlink link to a target file not otherwise accessible to her. When the privileged program tries to create a temporary file with the same name as the Symlink link, it will actually write to the target file pointed to by the attackers' Symlink link. If the attacker can insert malicious content in the temporary file she will be writing to the sensitive file by using the Symlink. The race occurs because the system checks if the temporary file exists, then creates the file. The attacker would typically create the Symlink during the interval between the check and the creation of the temporary file.