CVE-2015-6252
Description
A flaw was found in the way the Linux kernel's vhost driver treated userspace provided log file descriptor when processing the VHOST_SET_LOG_FD ioctl command. The file descriptor was never released and continued to consume kernel memory. A privileged local user with access to the /dev/vhost-net files could use this flaw to create a denial-of-service attack.
Statement
This issue does not affect the Linux kernels as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.
This issue has been rated as having Low impact, affects the Linux kernels as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, 7 and Red Hat Enterprise MRG 2 and is currently not planned to be addressed in a future updates.
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 v2 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 1.5 | 2.1 | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Local | Local | N/A |
| Access Complexity | Medium | Low | N/A |
| Authentication | Single | None | N/A |
| Confidentiality Impact | None | None | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | None | None | N/A |
| Availability Impact | Partial | Partial | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: AV:L/AC:M/Au:S/C:N/I:N/A:P
NVD: AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
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 Michael S. Tsirkin (Red Hat Engineering).
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