Zack's Kernel News
Kernel News
Zack covers: When a Security Hole Is OK; Kernel Documentation Updates; and Security Through Obscurity
When a Security Hole Is OK
Eric W. Biederman recently posted a patch to replace a 32-bit counter with a 64-bit counter. This would fix the problem that, as he put it, "With care an attacker can cause exec_id wrap and send arbitrary signals to a newly exec'd parent."
He added that he had tested this hole and found that he could wrap the 32-bit exec_id and exploit the problem in two weeks. Faster systems, of course, could do it more quickly.
However, Eric did acknowledge that on 32-bit CPUs, "reading self_exec_id is no longer atomic and can take two read instructions." This meant that on 32-bit systems there would be a microscopic window of time when the actual self_exec_id value would not match the value being read by the code. During that time, he said, this security hole remained exploitable.
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