CVEvulnerability
CVE-2024-53142
7.8 HIGH
Official page ↗
- Status
- Modified
- Published
- 2024-12-06
- Last modified
- 2026-06-17
- Assigner
- 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
- CVSS 3.1 ([email protected])
- 7.8 HIGH — CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Weaknesses
- CWE-787
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
initramfs: avoid filename buffer overrun
The initramfs filename field is defined in
Documentation/driver-api/early-userspace/buffer-format.rst as:
37 cpio_file := ALGN(4) + cpio_header + filename + "\0" + ALGN(4) + data
...
55 ============= ================== =========================
56 Field name Field size Meaning
57 ============= ================== =========================
...
70 c_namesize 8 bytes Length of filename, including final \0
When extracting an initramfs cpio archive, the kernel's do_name() path
handler assumes a zero-terminated path at @collected, passing it
directly to filp_open() / init_mkdir() / init_mknod().
If a specially crafted cpio entry carries a non-zero-terminated filename
and is followed by uninitialized memory, then a file may be created with
trailing characters that represent the uninitialized memory. The ability
to create an initramfs entry would imply already having full control of
the system, so the buffer overrun shouldn't be considered a security
vulnerability.
Append the output of the following bash script to an existing initramfs
and observe any created /initramfs_test_fname_overrunAA* path. E.g.
./reproducer.sh | gzip >> /myinitramfs
It's easiest to observe non-zero uninitialized memory when the output is
gzipped, as it'll overflow the heap allocated @out_buf in __gunzip(),
rather than the initrd_start+initrd_size block.
---- reproducer.sh ----
nilchar="A" # change to "\0" to properly zero terminate / pad
magic="070701"
ino=1
mode=$(( 0100777 ))
uid=0
gid=0
nlink=1
mtime=1
filesize=0
devmajor=0
devminor=1
rdevmajor=0
rdevminor=0
csum=0
fname="initramfs_test_fname_overrun"
namelen=$(( ${#fname} + 1 )) # plus one to account for terminator
printf "%s%08x%08x%08x%08x%08x%08x%08x%08x%08x%08x%08x%08x%08x%s" \
$magic $ino $mode $uid $gid $nlink $mtime $filesize \
$devmajor $devminor $rdevmajor $rdevminor $namelen $csum $fname
termpadlen=$(( 1 + ((4 - ((110 + $namelen) & 3)) % 4) ))
printf "%.s${nilchar}" $(seq 1 $termpadlen)
---- reproducer.sh ----
Symlink filename fields handled in do_symlink() won't overrun past the
data segment, due to the explicit zero-termination of the symlink
target.
Fix filename buffer overrun by aborting the initramfs FSM if any cpio
entry doesn't carry a zero-terminator at the expected (name_len - 1)
offset.
Affected configurations
• linux linux kernel (>= 2.6.12 < 4.19.325)
• linux linux kernel (>= 4.20 < 6.6.64)
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.7 < 6.11.11)
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.12 < 6.12.2)
Related
Weakness · CWE (1)
- CWE-787 Out-of-bounds Write weakness
References
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1a423bbbeaf9e3e20c4686501efd9b661fe834db Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/49d01e736c3045319e030d1e75fb983011abaca7 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6983b8ac787b3add5571cda563574932a59a99bb git.kernel.org
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/bb7ac96670ab1d8d681015f9d66e45dad579af4d Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c509b1acbd867d9e09580fe059a924cb5825afb1 git.kernel.org
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d3df9f26cff97beaa5643e551031795d5d5cddbe git.kernel.org
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e017671f534dd3f568db9e47b0583e853d2da9b5 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f892ddcf9f645380c358e73653cb0900f6bc9eb8 git.kernel.org
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fb83b093f75806333b6f4ae29b158d2e0e3ec971 Patch
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/03/msg00001.html lists.debian.org
- https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/03/msg00002.html lists.debian.org