CVE-2020-28915
Description
An out-of-bounds (OOB) memory access flaw was found in fbcon_get_font() in drivers/video/fbdev/core/fbcon.c in fbcon driver module in the Linux kernel. A bound check failure allows a local attacker with special user privilege to gain access to out-of-bounds memory, leading to a system crash or a leak of internal kernel information. The highest threat from this vulnerability is to integrity and system availability.
Mitigation
Add 'nomodeset' option as kernel boot parameter to disable frame buffering (edit /etc/default/grub, and run 'grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg' and reboot).
# cat /proc/cmdline
BOOT_IMAGE=(hd0,msdos1)/vmlinuz-4.18.0-147.el8.x86_64 root=/dev/mapper/rhel_rhel8u2--1-root ro crashkernel=auto resume=/dev/mapper/rhel_rhel8u2--1-swap rd.lvm.lv=rhel_rhel8u2-1/root rd.lvm.lv=rhel_rhel8u2-1/swap nomodeset
# ls -l /dev/fb*
ls: cannot access '/dev/fb*': No such file or directory
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 | 5.8 | 5.8 | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Physical | Physical | 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 | Low | Low | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | High | High | N/A |
| Availability Impact | High | High | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:P/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:H
NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:P/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:H
Red Hat CVSS v3 Score Explanation
- Attacker will need a physical access to the tty (AV:P),
- With privilege required is only to the root or users in tty group to access it. (PR:H)
- This flaw may have an OOB read of about 32 bytes (C:L)
- Stack corruption could end up smashing stack contents to be abused for further attacks.
- Accessing unprivileged memory will cause an availability problem (A:H).
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Confidentiality
Technical Impact: Read Memory
An attacker could get secret values such as cryptographic keys, PII, memory addresses, or other information that could be used in additional attacks.
Confidentiality
Technical Impact: Bypass Protection Mechanism
Out-of-bounds memory could contain memory addresses or other information that can be used to bypass ASLR and other protection mechanisms in order to improve the reliability of exploiting a separate weakness for code execution.
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart
An attacker could cause a segmentation fault or crash by causing memory to be read outside of the bounds of the buffer. This is especially likely when the code reads a variable amount of data and assumes that a sentinel exists to stop the read operation, such as a NUL in a string.
Other
Technical Impact: Varies by Context
The read operation could produce other undefined or unexpected results.
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