CVE-2021-20317
Description
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel. A corrupted timer tree caused the task wakeup to be missing in the timerqueue_add function in lib/timerqueue.c. This flaw allows a local attacker with special user privileges to cause a denial of service, slowing and eventually stopping the system while running OSP. The highest threat from this vulnerability is system availability.
Mitigation
In order to mitigate this issue, it is possible to prevent the affected code by loading the kvm module with "pi_inject_timer=0" parameter.
rmmod kvm_intel kvm
modprobe kvm pi_inject_timer=0
modprobe kvm_intel
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 | 4.4 | 4.4 | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Local | Local | N/A |
| Attack Complexity | Low | Low | N/A |
| Privileges Required | High | High | 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:3.1/AV:L/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
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Confidentiality
Technical Impact: Read Memory; Read Application Data
When reusing a resource such as memory or a program variable, the original contents of that resource may not be cleared before it is sent to an untrusted party.
Access Control
Technical Impact: Bypass Protection Mechanism
If security-critical decisions rely on a variable having a "0" or equivalent value, and the programming language performs this initialization on behalf of the programmer, then a bypass of security may occur.
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart
The uninitialized data may contain values that cause program flow to change in ways that the programmer did not intend. For example, if an uninitialized variable is used as an array index in C, then its previous contents may produce an index that is outside the range of the array, possibly causing a crash or an exit in other environments.
Acknowledgements
This issue was discovered by Jay Shin (Red Hat).
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