In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
kfence: fix memory leak when cat kfence objects
Hulk robot reported a kmemleak problem:
unreferenced object 0xffff93d1d8cc02e8 (size 248): comm "cat", pid 23327, jiffies 4624670141 (age 495992.217s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 00 40 85 19 d4 93 ff ff 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 .@.............. 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ backtrace: seq_open+0x2a/0x80 full_proxy_open+0x167/0x1e0 do_dentry_open+0x1e1/0x3a0 path_openat+0x961/0xa20 do_filp_open+0xae/0x120 do_sys_openat2+0x216/0x2f0 do_sys_open+0x57/0x80 do_syscall_64+0x33/0x40 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xa9 unreferenced object 0xffff93d419854000 (size 4096): comm "cat", pid 23327, jiffies 4624670141 (age 495992.217s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 6b 66 65 6e 63 65 2d 23 32 35 30 3a 20 30 78 30 kfence-#250: 0x0 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 37 35 34 62 64 61 31 32 2d 0000000754bda12- backtrace: seq_read_iter+0x313/0x440 seq_read+0x14b/0x1a0 full_proxy_read+0x56/0x80 vfs_read+0xa5/0x1b0 ksys_read+0xa0/0xf0 do_syscall_64+0x33/0x40 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xa9
I find that we can easily reproduce this problem with the following commands:
cat /sys/kernel/debug/kfence/objects echo scan > /sys/kernel/debug/kmemleak cat /sys/kernel/debug/kmemleak
The leaked memory is allocated in the stack below:
do_syscall_64 do_sys_open do_dentry_open full_proxy_open seq_open ---> alloc seq_file vfs_read full_proxy_read seq_read seq_read_iter traverse ---> alloc seq_buf
And it should have been released in the following process:
do_syscall_64 syscall_exit_to_user_mode exit_to_user_mode_prepare task_work_run ____fput __fput full_proxy_release ---> free here
However, the release function corresponding to file_operations is not implemented in kfence. As a result, a memory leak occurs. Therefore, the solution to this problem is to implement the corresponding release function.
CVSS Details
- CVSS 3.1 Base Score: 3.3
- CVSS 3.1 Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L)
Covered by Rapid7
| Product | Vendor Advisory | Solution File | Added | Published |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Debian | — | Upgrade linux | Jul 30, 2024 | Mar 4, 2024 |
| Redhat_linux | — | No solution exists | Jul 9, 2025 | Mar 4, 2024 |
| Suse | — | Upgrade kernel-azure-livepatch-develUpgrade ocfs2-kmp-rtUpgrade kernel-azure-extraUpgrade kernel-syms-azureUpgrade kernel-source-azureUpgrade kernel-devel-azureUpgrade kernel-rt_debugUpgrade gfs2-kmp-rtUpgrade gfs2-kmp-azureUpgrade kernel-azure-optionalUpgrade kernel-rt_debug-develUpgrade kselftests-kmp-azureUpgrade kernel-source-rtUpgrade kernel-rt-optionalUpgrade cluster-md-kmp-azureUpgrade kernel-syms-rtUpgrade ocfs2-kmp-azureUpgrade kernel-rt-livepatch-develUpgrade kernel-rt_debug-livepatch-develUpgrade kernel-rt_debug-vdsoUpgrade reiserfs-kmp-rtUpgrade kernel-rt-extraUpgrade kernel-rt-develUpgrade kernel-azureUpgrade kernel-rt-vdsoUpgrade reiserfs-kmp-azureUpgrade kselftests-kmp-rtUpgrade kernel-azure-develUpgrade kernel-devel-rtUpgrade kernel-rtUpgrade cluster-md-kmp-rtUpgrade dlm-kmp-azureUpgrade kernel-rt-livepatchUpgrade dlm-kmp-rtUpgrade kernel-azure-vdso | Aug 9, 2024 | Mar 4, 2024 |
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