eventpoll: don't decrement ep refcount while still holding the ep mutex (Linux Linux)

CVE-2025-38349
HIGH 7.8

En bref

Source
NVD
EPSS
EPSS 0.18 % · centile 8 ()
État
PUBLISHED
Publiée
Mise à jour
Attribuée par
Linux
Statut NVD
Modified

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: eventpoll: don't decrement ep refcount while still holding the ep mutex Jann Horn points out that epoll is decrementing the ep refcount and then doing a mutex_unlock(&ep->mtx); afterwards. That's very wrong, because it can lead to a use-after-free. That pattern is actually fine for the very last reference, because the code in question will delay the actual call to "ep_free(ep)" until after it has unlocked the mutex. But it's wrong for the much subtler "next to last" case when somebody *else* may also be dropping their reference and free the ep while we're still using the mutex. Note that this is true even if that other user is also using the same ep mutex: mutexes, unlike spinlocks, can not be used for object ownership, even if they guarantee mutual exclusion. A mutex "unlock" operation is not atomic, and as one user is still accessing the mutex as part of unlocking it, another user can come in and get the now released mutex and free the data structure while the first user is still cleaning up. See our mutex documentation in Documentation/locking/mutex-design.rst, in particular the section [1] about semantics: "mutex_unlock() may access the mutex structure even after it has internally released the lock already - so it's not safe for another context to acquire the mutex and assume that the mutex_unlock() context is not using the structure anymore" So if we drop our ep ref before the mutex unlock, but we weren't the last one, we may then unlock the mutex, another user comes in, drops _their_ reference and releases the 'ep' as it now has no users - all while the mutex_unlock() is still accessing it. Fix this by simply moving the ep refcount dropping to outside the mutex: the refcount itself is atomic, and doesn't need mutex protection (that's the whole _point_ of refcounts: unlike mutexes, they are inherently about object lifetimes).

Faiblesses (CWE)

  • CWE-416 — Utilisation après libération

Références

Scores

VersionScoreVecteurÉvalué par
CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.8CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HLinux
CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.8CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HNVD · 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 (Secondary)
CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.8CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HNVD · nvd@nist.gov (Primary)

Références européennes

Avis du CERT-FR

Configurations affectées (CPE NVD)

Produits affectés

ProduitVersions
Linux · Linuxaffected f2451def095c1743adcfcb0cb5dadc86034e162a < 263f5de8302a6f2f136d392e5d3f8b1edf922857 ; affected a1f93804449d13f97dabd4b996817de4bf1ed67a < b0821ec902d39062356cb644c16e17a705d1c9f5 ; affected 58c9b016e12855286370dfb704c08498edbc857a < 521e9ff0b67c66a17d6f9593dfccafaa984aae4c ; affected 58c9b016e12855286370dfb704c08498edbc857a < 6dee745bd0aec9d399df674256e7b1ecdb615444 ; affected 58c9b016e12855286370dfb704c08498edbc857a < 605c18698ecfa99165f36b7f59d3ed503e169814 ; affected 58c9b016e12855286370dfb704c08498edbc857a < 8c2e52ebbe885c7eeaabd3b7ddcdc1246fc400d2
Linux · Linuxaffected 6.4 ; unaffected 0 < 6.4 ; unaffected 5.15.222 ≤ 5.15.* ; unaffected 6.1.178 ≤ 6.1.* ; unaffected 6.6.99 ≤ 6.6.* ; unaffected 6.12.39 ≤ 6.12.*

Sources

SourceLicence
CVE List (CVEProject cvelistV5)CVE Program Terms of Use
EPSS (FIRST.org)FIRST — attribution requested
ENISA EUVDENISA — reproduction authorised, source acknowledged
CERT-FR (ANSSI)Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0
NVD (NIST) via fkie-cad/nvd-json-data-feedsPublic domain — this product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD