CVE-2019-3874
Description
The SCTP socket buffer used by a userspace application is not accounted by the cgroups subsystem. An attacker can use this flaw to cause a denial of service attack.
Statement
While this issue affects the Linux Kernel in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and not OpenShift Container Platform (OCP) 3 code directly. OCP 3 makes use of CGroups in the Kernel to measure and report on the amount of system resources used by an end user application.
The default Security Context Constraints (SCC) in OpenShift Container Platform 3.x disallow an end user from running a container as root. Also a check is performed by the OCP 3 Installer to ensure SELinux is enabled, [1].
Mitigation
SELinux prevents a bind of the SCTP socket by a non-root user.
To mitigate this issue if not using SELinux, or if a Security Context Constraint allows running pods as the root user the 'sctp' module should be blacklisted. Please this this Knowledge Base article for more information on how to blacklist a kernel module. 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 Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 5.3 | 6.5 | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Adjacent Network | Adjacent Network | N/A |
| Attack Complexity | High | Low | N/A |
| Privileges Required | None | None | 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 | High | High | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.0/AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
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.
Acknowledgements
This issue was discovered by Andrea Spagnolo (Red Hat), Matteo Croce (Red Hat), and Natale Vinto (Red Hat).
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