Re: [PATCH 10/18] qla2xxx: prevent bounds-check bypass via speculative execution

[James Bottomley]

On Fri, 2018-01-12 at 08:27 +0100, Greg KH wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 11, 2018 at 02:15:12PM -0800, Dan Williams wrote:
> > 
> > On Sat, Jan 6, 2018 at 1:03 AM, Greg KH <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > > wrote:
> > > 
> > > On Fri, Jan 05, 2018 at 05:10:48PM -0800, Dan Williams wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > Static analysis reports that 'handle' may be a user controlled
> > > > value that is used as a data dependency to read 'sp' from the
> > > > 'req->outstanding_cmds' array.ÂÂIn order to avoid potential
> > > > leaks of kernel memory values, block speculative execution of
> > > > the instruction stream that could issue reads based on an
> > > > invalid value of 'sp'. In this case 'sp' is directly
> > > > dereferenced later in the function.
> > > 
> > > I'm pretty sure that 'handle' comes from the hardware, not from
> > > userspace, from what I can tell here.ÂÂIf we want to start
> > > auditing __iomem data sources, great!ÂÂBut that's a bigger task,
> > > and one I don't think we are ready to tackle...
> > 
> > I think it falls in the hygiene bucket of shutting off an array
> > index from a source that could be under attacker control. Should we
> > leave this one un-patched while we decide if we generally have a
> > problem with trusting completion 'tags' from hardware? My vote is
> > patch it for now.
> 
> Hah, if you are worried about "tags" from hardware, we have a lot
> more auditing to do, right?Â

We'd also have a lot more to do: the assumption would have to be
malicious hardware and most hardware has access to fairly vital stuff
directly. ÂI really don't think we have to worry about side channel
attacks from hardware until the direct attack vector is closed.

James