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SYNTHESIS OF THE VULNERABILITY

A local attacker can force the kernel to log a short message, in
order to read at an invalid memory address, which leads to a
denial of service.

Impacted products: Linux

Severity: 1/4

Creation date: 06/02/2013

DESCRIPTION OF THE VULNERABILITY

The Linux kernel uses the printk() function to display important
messages.

The call_console_drivers() function displays the message on the
console. It calls the log_prefix() function, which decodes the
syslog "" prefix. However, when the message is too
short, the log_prefix() function reads after the end of the
storage buffer, to search the ’>’ character for example.

A local attacker can therefore force the kernel to log a short
message, in order to read at an invalid memory address, which
leads to a denial of service.

ACCESS TO THE COMPLETE VIGIL@NCE BULLETIN

http://vigilance.fr/vulnerability/Linux-kernel-denial-of-service-via-printk-12382