Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 23 Feb 2018 11:52:20 +0100 | From | Greg Kroah-Hartman <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] x86: mce: fix kernel panic when check_interval is changed |
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On Fri, Feb 23, 2018 at 07:13:50PM +0900, Seunghun Han wrote: > I am Seunghun Han and a senior security researcher at National Security > Research Institute of South Korea. > > I found a critical security issue which can make kernel panic in userspace. > After analyzing the issue carefully, I found that MCE driver in the kernel > has a problem which can be occurred in SMP environment. > > The check_interval file in > /sys/devices/system/machinecheck/machinecheck<cpu number> directory is a > global timer value for MCE polling. If it is changed by one CPU, MCE driver > in kernel calls mce_restart() function and broadcasts the event to other > CPUs to delete and restart MCE polling timer. > > The __mcheck_cpu_init_timer() function which is called by mce_restart() > function initializes the mce_timer variable, and the "lock" in mce_timer is > also reinitialized. If more than one CPU write a specific value to > check_interval file concurrently, one can initialize the "lock" in mce_timer > while the others are handling "lock" in mce_timer. This problem causes some > synchronization errors such as kernel panic and kernel hang. > > It is a critical security problem because the attacker can make kernel panic > by writing a value to the check_interval file in userspace, and it can be > used for Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack.
As only root can write to that file, it's not that critical of an issue, but yes, this is a problem. Nice find and fix.
> > To fix this problem, I changed the __mcheck_cpu_init_timer() function to > reuse mce_timer instead of initializing it. The purpose of the function is > to restart the timer and it can be archived by calling > > Signed-off-by: Seunghun Han <kkamagui@gmail.com>
Cc: stable <stable@vger.kernel.org> Acked-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
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