Re: [PATCH] bpf: btf: Fix a missing check bug

[valdis . kletnieks]

On Mon, 08 Oct 2018 13:51:09 -0700, Song Liu said:
> On Sun, Oct 7, 2018 at 1:26 PM Wenwen Wang <wang6495@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> > same value. Given that the btf data is in the user space, a malicious user
> > can race to change the data between the two copies. By doing so, the user
> > can provide malicious data to the kernel and cause undefined behavior.

> These two numbers are copied from same memory location, right? So I
> think this check is not necessary?

Security researchers call this a TOCTOU bug - Time of Check - Time of Use.

What can happen:

1) We fetch the value  (say we get 90) from userspace and stash it in hdr_len.

2) We do some other stuff like check the hdr_len isn't too big, etc..

        meanwhile, on another CPU running another thread of the process...
                3) malicious code stuffs a 117 into that field

4) We fetch the entire header, incliding a now-changed hdr_len  (now 117) and
stick it in btf->hdr->hdr_len.

5) Any code that assumes that hdr_len and btf->hdr->hdr_len are the same value
explodes in interesting ways.

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