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Linux CVE-2024-35804

MEDIUM
Memory Leak (CWE-401)
2024-05-17 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
5.5
CVSS 3.1 · NVD
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Severity by source

NVD PRIMARY
5.5 MEDIUM
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.

CVSS VectorNVD

Attack Vector
Local
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
Low
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

Lifecycle Timeline

1
CVE Published
May 17, 2024 - 14:15 nvd
MEDIUM 5.5

DescriptionNVD

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

KVM: x86: Mark target gfn of emulated atomic instruction as dirty

When emulating an atomic access on behalf of the guest, mark the target gfn dirty if the CMPXCHG by KVM is attempted and doesn't fault. This fixes a bug where KVM effectively corrupts guest memory during live migration by writing to guest memory without informing userspace that the page is dirty.

Marking the page dirty got unintentionally dropped when KVM's emulated CMPXCHG was converted to do a user access. Before that, KVM explicitly mapped the guest page into kernel memory, and marked the page dirty during the unmap phase.

Mark the page dirty even if the CMPXCHG fails, as the old data is written back on failure, i.e. the page is still written. The value written is guaranteed to be the same because the operation is atomic, but KVM's ABI is that all writes are dirty logged regardless of the value written. And more importantly, that's what KVM did before the buggy commit.

Huge kudos to the folks on the Cc list (and many others), who did all the actual work of triaging and debugging.

base-commit: 6769ea8da8a93ed4630f1ce64df6aafcaabfce64

AnalysisAI

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: x86: Mark target gfn of emulated atomic instruction as dirty When emulating an atomic access on behalf of the guest, mark the. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. This Memory Leak vulnerability could allow attackers to exhaust available memory leading to denial of service.

Technical ContextAI

This vulnerability is classified as Memory Leak (CWE-401), which allows attackers to exhaust available memory leading to denial of service. In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: KVM: x86: Mark target gfn of emulated atomic instruction as dirty When emulating an atomic access on behalf of the guest, mark the target gfn dirty if the CMPXCHG by KVM is attempted and doesn't fault. This fixes a bug where KVM effectively corrupts guest memory during live migration by writing to guest memory without informing userspace that the page is dirty. Marking the page dirty got unintentionally dropped when KVM's emulated CMPXCHG was converted to do a user access. Before that, KVM explicitly mapped the guest page into kernel memory, and marked the page dirty during the unmap phase. Mark the page dirty even if the CMPXCHG fails, as the old data is written back on failure, i.e. the page is still written. The value written is guaranteed to be the same because the operation is atomic, but KVM's ABI is that all writes are dirty logged regardless of the value written. And more importantly, that's what KVM did before the buggy commit. Huge kudos to the folks on the Cc list (and many others), who did all the actual work of triaging and debugging. base-commit: 6769ea8da8a93ed4630f1ce64df6aafcaabfce64 Affected products include: Linux Linux Kernel.

RemediationAI

A vendor patch is available. Apply the latest security update as soon as possible. Ensure all allocated memory is properly freed. Use RAII patterns or garbage-collected languages.

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CVE-2024-35804 vulnerability details – vuln.today

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