Re: [PATCH] audit: fix potential integer overflow in audit_log_n_hex()

[Paul Moore]

On May 13, 2026 Ricardo Robaina <rrobaina@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> The function audit_log_n_hex() calculates new_len as len << 1 to
> account for hex encoding, where each byte becomes two characters.
> However, when len is passed as size_t but new_len was declared as
> int, this could lead to integer overflow for large values of len.
> 
> Additionally, the bit shift operation itself could overflow if len
> exceeds SIZE_MAX / 2, leading to incorrect buffer size calculations
> and potential memory corruption.
> 
> Fix this by changing new_len and loop counter i from int to size_t
> to match the len parameter type, preventing signed/unsigned mismatches,
> and by adding an overflow check before the bit shift operation that
> calculates len << 1.
> 
> Fixes: 168b7173959f ("AUDIT: Clean up logging of untrusted strings")
> Signed-off-by: Ricardo Robaina <rrobaina@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
>  kernel/audit.c | 10 ++++++++--
>  1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/kernel/audit.c b/kernel/audit.c
> index e1d489bc2dff..32ac50996451 100644
> --- a/kernel/audit.c
> +++ b/kernel/audit.c
> @@ -2076,7 +2076,8 @@ void audit_log_format(struct audit_buffer *ab, const char *fmt, ...)
>  void audit_log_n_hex(struct audit_buffer *ab, const unsigned char *buf,
>  		size_t len)
>  {
> -	int i, avail, new_len;
> +	int avail;
> +	size_t i, new_len;
>  	unsigned char *ptr;
>  	struct sk_buff *skb;
>  
> @@ -2084,9 +2085,14 @@ void audit_log_n_hex(struct audit_buffer *ab, const unsigned char *buf,
>  		return;
>  
>  	BUG_ON(!ab->skb);
> +
> +	/* prevent new_len overflow */
> +	if (len > SIZE_MAX / 2)
> +		return;
> +
>  	skb = ab->skb;
>  	avail = skb_tailroom(skb);
> -	new_len = len<<1;
> +	new_len = len << 1;
>  	if (new_len >= avail) {
>  		/* Round the buffer request up to the next multiple */
>  		new_len = AUDIT_BUFSIZ*(((new_len-avail)/AUDIT_BUFSIZ) + 1);

I might suggest using check_shl_overflow() instead, mostly because it
helps document a shift that could potentially overflow.

--
paul-moore.com