CVE-2018-10021
Description
[Disputed] A memory leak was identified in the Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) implementation in the Linux kernel, specifically in the libsas component. This issue occurs when ATA devices in error handling (EH) fail to properly pass commands to libata, causing ATA queued commands (qc) to leak and triggering warnings. If enough ATA qcs are leaked, it can lead to allocation failures, causing I/O to block indefinitely, potentially resulting in a denial of service (DoS) due to memory exhaustion. However, this issue has been disputed, with claims that the vulnerability only arises under specific failure conditions that require physical proximity, such as unplugging SAS Host Bus Adapter cables.
Statement
This issue has been fully addressed with the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and later, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9. As a result, no versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and 9 are currently affected by this vulnerability.
Furthermore, Red Hat Product Security does not classify this as a security vulnerability. Given that the relevance of this vulnerability has been disputed by a third party vendors. The argument is that the issue can only be triggered under very specific conditions—namely, by physically proximate attackers who manually unplug SAS Host Bus Adapter cables. As a result, the vulnerability is not considered a significant security risk, since it requires direct physical access and cannot be exploited remotely. Given these constraints, this flaw is not classified as a security vulnerability, but rather a system reliability issue in highly specific, physical environments.
Mitigation
Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base or stability.
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 0 | 5.5 | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Network | Local | N/A |
| Attack Complexity | High | Low | N/A |
| Privileges Required | None | Low | N/A |
| User Interaction | None | None | N/A |
| Scope | Unchanged | Unchanged | N/A |
| Confidentiality | None | None | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | None | None | N/A |
| Availability Impact | None | High | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:N
NVD: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Resource Consumption (Other); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory); DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU)
An attacker that can influence the allocation of resources that are not properly released could deplete the available resource pool and prevent all other processes from accessing the same type of resource. Frequently-affected resources include memory, CPU, disk space, power or battery, etc.
Frequently Asked Questions
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