Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2021-47162

medium Nessus Plugin ID 230163

Synopsis

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed with a vulnerability that the vendor indicates will not be patched.

Description

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

- In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: tipc: skb_linearize the head skb when reassembling msgs It's not a good idea to append the frag skb to a skb's frag_list if the frag_list already has skbs from elsewhere, such as this skb was created by pskb_copy() where the frag_list was cloned (all the skbs in it were skb_get'ed) and shared by multiple skbs. However, the new appended frag skb should have been only seen by the current skb. Otherwise, it will cause use after free crashes as this appended frag skb are seen by multiple skbs but it only got skb_get called once. The same thing happens with a skb updated by pskb_may_pull() with a skb_cloned skb. Li Shuang has reported quite a few crashes caused by this when doing testing over macvlan devices: [] kernel BUG at net/core/skbuff.c:1970! [] Call Trace: [] skb_clone+0x4d/0xb0 [] macvlan_broadcast+0xd8/0x160 [macvlan] [] macvlan_process_broadcast+0x148/0x150 [macvlan] [] process_one_work+0x1a7/0x360 [] worker_thread+0x30/0x390 [] kernel BUG at mm/usercopy.c:102! [] Call Trace: []
__check_heap_object+0xd3/0x100 [] __check_object_size+0xff/0x16b [] simple_copy_to_iter+0x1c/0x30 []
__skb_datagram_iter+0x7d/0x310 [] __skb_datagram_iter+0x2a5/0x310 [] skb_copy_datagram_iter+0x3b/0x90 [] tipc_recvmsg+0x14a/0x3a0 [tipc] [] ____sys_recvmsg+0x91/0x150 [] ___sys_recvmsg+0x7b/0xc0 [] kernel BUG at mm/slub.c:305! [] Call Trace: [] <IRQ> [] kmem_cache_free+0x3ff/0x400 []
__netif_receive_skb_core+0x12c/0xc40 [] ? kmem_cache_alloc+0x12e/0x270 [] netif_receive_skb_internal+0x3d/0xb0 [] ? get_rx_page_info+0x8e/0xa0 [be2net] [] be_poll+0x6ef/0xd00 [be2net] [] ? irq_exit+0x4f/0x100 [] net_rx_action+0x149/0x3b0 ... This patch is to fix it by linearizing the head skb if it has frag_list set in tipc_buf_append(). Note that we choose to do this before calling skb_unshare(), as __skb_linearize() will avoid skb_copy(). Also, we can not just drop the frag_list either as the early time. (CVE-2021-47162)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

Solution

There is no known solution at this time.

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 230163

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2021_47162.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 3/5/2025

Updated: 3/5/2025

Supported Sensors: Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Low

Score: 3.6

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 4.6

Temporal Score: 3.4

Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:N/A:C

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2021-47162

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5.5

Temporal Score: 4.8

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

Required KB Items: Host/cpu, Host/local_checks_enabled, global_settings/vendor_unpatched

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Vulnerability Publication Date: 1/12/2022

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2021-47162