CVE-2019-19045

Description

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel. The Mellanox Technologies Innova driver mishandles resource cleanup on error. An attacker, able to trigger error could use this flaw to crash the system. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to system availability.

Statement

This issue is rated as having Moderate impact because of the privileges needed to trigger the resource cleanup code path.

Mitigation

In order to mitigate this issue it is possible to prevent the affected code from being loaded by blacklisting the kernel module mlx5_core. For instructions relating to how to blacklist a kernel module refer to: https://access.redhat.com/solutions/41278 .

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).

CVSS v3 Score Breakdown

Red HatNVDcve.org
Base Score4.54.4N/A
Attack VectorAdjacent NetworkLocalN/A
Attack ComplexityLowLowN/A
Privileges RequiredHighHighN/A
User InteractionNoneNoneN/A
ScopeUnchangedUnchangedN/A
ConfidentialityNoneNoneN/A
Integrity ImpactNoneNoneN/A
Availability ImpactHighHighN/A

Vector

Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Red Hat CVSS v3 Score Explanation

The issue is in service/command connection code. This can be hardly considered to be a AV:N, AV:A seems to be more appropriate. PR:H because you need to have full access to the mlx5 device over such connection and be able to issue (configuration/service) commands.

Understanding the Weakness (CWE)

Availability

Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart; DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory); DoS: Resource Consumption (Other)

If an attacker can trigger the allocation of the limited resources, but the number or size of the resources is not controlled, then the most common result is denial of service. This would prevent valid users from accessing the product, and it could potentially have an impact on the surrounding environment, i.e., the product may slow down, crash due to unhandled errors, or lock out legitimate users. For example, a memory exhaustion attack against an application could slow down the application as well as its host operating system.

Access Control,Other

Technical Impact: Bypass Protection Mechanism; Other

In some cases it may be possible to force the product to "fail open" in the event of resource exhaustion. The state of the product -- and possibly the security functionality - may then be compromised.

Frequently Asked Questions

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