In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
smb: client: fix use-after-free in crypt_message when using async crypto
The CVE-2024-50047 fix removed asynchronous crypto handling from crypt_message(), assuming all crypto operations are synchronous. However, when hardware crypto accelerators are used, this can cause use-after-free crashes:
crypt_message() // Allocate the creq buffer containing the req creq = smb2_get_aead_req(..., &req);
// Async encryption returns -EINPROGRESS immediately
rc = enc ? crypto_aead_encrypt(req) : crypto_aead_decrypt(req);
// Free creq while async operation is still in progress
kvfree_sensitive(creq, ...);
Hardware crypto modules often implement async AEAD operations for performance. When crypto_aead_encrypt/decrypt() returns -EINPROGRESS, the operation completes asynchronously. Without crypto_wait_req(), the function immediately frees the request buffer, leading to crashes when the driver later accesses the freed memory.
This results in a use-after-free condition when the hardware crypto driver later accesses the freed request structure, leading to kernel crashes with NULL pointer dereferences.
The issue occurs because crypto_alloc_aead() with mask=0 doesn't guarantee synchronous operation. Even without CRYPTO_ALG_ASYNC in the mask, async implementations can be selected.
Fix by restoring the async crypto handling:
This ensures the request buffer isn't freed until the crypto operation completes, whether synchronous or asynchronous, while preserving the CVE-2024-50047 fix.
| Software | From | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| linux / linux_kernel | 5.10.237 | 5.10.241 |
| linux / linux_kernel | 5.15.181 | 5.15.190 |
| linux / linux_kernel | 6.1.128 | 6.1.147 |
| linux / linux_kernel | 6.6.57 | 6.6.100 |
| linux / linux_kernel | 6.11.4 | 6.12.40 |
| linux / linux_kernel | 6.13 | 6.15.8 |
| linux / linux_kernel | 6.16-rc1 | 6.16-rc1.x |
| linux / linux_kernel | 6.16-rc2 | 6.16-rc2.x |
| linux / linux_kernel | 6.16-rc3 | 6.16-rc3.x |
| linux / linux_kernel | 6.16-rc4 | 6.16-rc4.x |
| linux / linux_kernel | 6.16-rc5 | 6.16-rc5.x |
| linux / linux_kernel | 6.16-rc6 | 6.16-rc6.x |
| debian / debian_linux | 11.0 | 11.0.x |