[HN Gopher] A reference counting bug which leads to local privil...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       A reference counting bug which leads to local privilege escalation
       in io_uring
        
       Author : todsacerdoti
       Score  : 58 points
       Date   : 2021-06-21 18:41 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (flattsecurity.medium.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (flattsecurity.medium.com)
        
       | jandrese wrote:
       | Strangely the Redhat bug tracker listed in the CVE has this issue
       | closed with "NOTABUG". I guess it's not technically Redhat's
       | problem?
       | 
       | https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1873476
        
         | wereHamster wrote:
         | > The affected code was not introduced into any kernel versions
         | shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux making this vulnerable
         | not applicable to these platforms.
         | 
         | Might explain the strange status.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | saagarjha wrote:
       | It would be nice if the title mentioned what was affected,
       | perhaps something like "CVE-2021-20226: io_uring privilege
       | escalation via reference counting bug".
        
         | mhh__ wrote:
         | So HN should be optimized for people who don't click the link?
        
           | marshray wrote:
           | Perhaps the titles at least should be optimized for people
           | deciding whether to click the link.
        
         | hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
         | If anything, [GNU/Linux] would be more relevant.
        
         | dang wrote:
         | That's easy. We don't need CVE numbers in titles. The
         | information is trivially available to anyone who needs it.
         | 
         | (Submitted title was "CVE-2021-20226 a reference counting bug
         | which leads to local privilege escalati".)
        
       | secondcoming wrote:
       | The actual code bug:
       | 
       | https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1873476#c16
        
       | edoceo wrote:
       | Here's the CVE
       | 
       | https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2021-2022...
       | 
       | For some reason the article don't link there :(
        
         | e12e wrote:
         | Thank you. But CVE seems to disagree with the headline?
         | 
         | > The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data
         | integrity, confidentiality and system availability.
         | 
         | Or is this more of a "read/modify /etc/shadow or /sbin/su" kind
         | of thing?
        
           | tptacek wrote:
           | As I read it: it's a kernel UAF; memory corruption, in the
           | context of the kernel. There's a secondary attack vector
           | related to the refcount mishandling, where you can obtain
           | control of file table entries after an `execve`, even if you
           | exec a SUID, which is also bad.
        
       | amerine wrote:
       | Any idea what the diagrams were generated with? It looks
       | graphviz-y to me.
        
       | sva_ wrote:
       | For a moment, I thought 'escalati' (in the title of the
       | submission) was some kind of professional term that had so far
       | evaded me. It sounds pretty elegant. But of course, the title was
       | just cut off. Almost disappointing.
        
         | jtbayly wrote:
         | escalati: plural of escalatum
         | 
         | OR
         | 
         | escalati: The beings who control the illuminati
        
         | hospadar wrote:
         | Escalati: the secretive guild of hereditary escalator engineers
         | who maintain the escalators in the Illuminati's secret volcano
         | lair (escalator reliability engineering is a major concern when
         | world leaders are frequently escalating over giant cauldrons of
         | molten lava)
        
         | dcminter wrote:
         | The same - though I read it as being a tongue-in-cheek plural
         | for escalation in a security context. Perfect for high-falutin'
         | conference papers!
        
           | edoceo wrote:
           | pwn2own: escalati the boxen!
        
         | microtherion wrote:
         | The Escalati - a secret society controlling the world by means
         | of privilege escalation.
        
           | 988747 wrote:
           | As opposed to Iluminati, who try to do the same with smart
           | lightbulbs?
        
             | loopz wrote:
             | Have we lightened up yet?
        
               | [deleted]
        
           | Lammy wrote:
           | You got it backwards. Remember that when people say
           | "illuminati" they are speculating about occultists, not about
           | illumists.
        
       | tptacek wrote:
       | Further grist for the mill about the effectiveness of seccomp-
       | style filtering for multitenant Docker, since it's unlikely
       | anyone was filtering out `io_uring_setup`.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-06-21 23:00 UTC)