Re: CVE-2024-35876: x86/mce: Make sure to grab mce_sysfs_mutex in set_bank()

[Vegard Nossum <vegard.nossum@oracle.com>]

On 23/05/2024 12:24, Nikolay Borisov wrote:
> On 19.05.24 г. 11:34 ч., Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
>> Description
>> ===========
>>
>> In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
>>
>> x86/mce: Make sure to grab mce_sysfs_mutex in set_bank()
>>
>> Modifying a MCA bank's MCA_CTL bits which control which error types to
>> be reported is done over
>>
>>    /sys/devices/system/machinecheck/
>>    ├── machinecheck0
>>    │   ├── bank0
>>    │   ├── bank1
>>    │   ├── bank10
>>    │   ├── bank11
>>    ...
>>
>> sysfs nodes by writing the new bit mask of events to enable.
>>
>> When the write is accepted, the kernel deletes all current timers and
>> reinits all banks.
>>
>> Doing that in parallel can lead to initializing a timer which is already
>> armed and in the timer wheel, i.e., in use already:
>>
>>    ODEBUG: init active (active state 0) object: ffff888063a28000 object
>>    type: timer_list hint: mce_timer_fn+0x0/0x240 
>> arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mce/core.c:2642
>>    WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 8120 at lib/debugobjects.c:514
>>    debug_print_object+0x1a0/0x2a0 lib/debugobjects.c:514
>>
>> Fix that by grabbing the sysfs mutex as the rest of the MCA sysfs code
>> does.
>>
>> Reported by: Yue Sun <samsun1006219@gmail.com>
>> Reported by: xingwei lee <xrivendell7@gmail.com>
>>
>> The Linux kernel CVE team has assigned CVE-2024-35876 to this issue.
> 
> 
> I'd like to dispute the CVE for this issue. Those sysfs entries are 
> owned by root and can only be written by it. There are innumerable ways 
> in which root can corrupt/crash the state of the machine and I don't see 
> why this is anything special.

I haven't looked at the issue in detail but it sounds like this
potentially breaks lockdown (which is arguably a security feature) so
"requires root" to reach is not really an argument against this having a
CVE assigned.


Vegard