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Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer

CVE-2022-23523

Medium
4/10

Summary

In versions prior to 0.8.1, the linux-loader crate uses the offsets and sizes provided in the ELF headers to determine the offsets to read from. If those offsets point beyond the end of the file this could lead to Virtual Machine Monitors using the `linux-loader` crate entering an infinite loop if the ELF header of the kernel they are loading was modified in a malicious manner. This issue has been addressed in 0.8.1. The issue can be mitigated by ensuring that only trusted kernel images are loaded or by verifying that the headers do not point beyond the end of the file.

  • LOW
  • LOCAL
  • NONE
  • UNCHANGED
  • NONE
  • NONE
  • NONE
  • LOW

CWE-119 - Buffer Overflow

Buffer overflow attacks involve data transit and operations exceeding the restricted memory buffer, thereby corrupting or overwriting data in adjacent memory locations. Such overflow allows the attacker to run arbitrary code or manipulate the existing code to cause privilege escalation, data breach, denial of service, system crash and even complete system compromise. Given that languages such as C and C++ lack default safeguards against overwriting or accessing data in their memory, applications utilizing these languages are most susceptible to buffer overflows attacks.

References

Advisory Timeline

  • Published