Freely subscribe to our NEWSLETTER

This bulletin was written by Vigil@nce : http://vigilance.fr/offer

SYNTHESIS OF THE VULNERABILITY

When the system uses a Solarflare network device, a remote
attacker can use large TCP data, in order to lock the kernel.

Severity: 2/4

Creation date: 01/08/2012

IMPACTED PRODUCTS

– Linux kernel

DESCRIPTION OF THE VULNERABILITY

The TSO (TCP Segmentation Offload) feature is used to delegate the
segmentation of TCP data to the network device. It is enabled by
default.

The support of Solarflare network devices is implemented in the
drivers/net/ethernet/sfc kernel driver. However, with DSO, and if
the MSS (Maximum Segment Size) defined by the remote peer is low,
the driver incorrectly computes the size of data to fragment,
which indefinitely calls a watchdog.

When the system uses a Solarflare network device, a remote
attacker can therefore use large TCP data, in order to lock the
kernel.

ACCESS TO THE COMPLETE VIGIL@NCE BULLETIN

http://vigilance.fr/vulnerability/Linux-kernel-denial-of-service-via-sfc-11814