In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
mctp: serial: handle zero-length frames to prevent rx buffer overflow
The MCTP serial receive state machine reads a frame length byte in
mctp_serial_push_header() case 2 and validates it upper-bound-only:
<pre>
if (c > MCTP_SERIAL_FRAME_MTU) {
dev->rxstate = STATE_ERR;
} else {
dev->rxlen = c;
dev->rxpos = 0;
dev->rxstate = STATE_DATA;
...
}
</pre>
A length of zero passes this check, so rxlen is set to 0 and the state
machine advances to STATE_DATA. In mctp_serial_push() STATE_DATA, the
incoming byte is stored and rxpos incremented before the terminator is
<pre>
dev->rxbuf[dev->rxpos] = c;
dev->rxpos++;
dev->rxstate = STATE_DATA;
if (dev->rxpos == dev->rxlen) {
dev->rxpos = 0;
dev->rxstate = STATE_TRAILER;
}
</pre>
With rxlen == 0 the "rxpos == rxlen" terminator can never fire (rxpos is
already 1 on the first data byte), so subsequent bytes are written past
the end of the fixed 74-byte rxbuf, which is the last member of the
netdev private area. Every following data byte is an attacker-controlled
1-byte out-of-bounds heap write, and the overflow continues until a
frame (0x7e) or escape byte resets the parser -- effectively unbounded.
Reaching this requires CAP_NET_ADMIN to attach the N_MCTP line
discipline and bring the resulting mctpserialN netdev up, after which
the bytes arrive via the tty receive path.
Route a zero-length frame straight to STATE_TRAILER instead of
STATE_DATA. The trailer/framing bytes are still consumed, and the frame
resolves to a zero-length skb that the MCTP core rejects; the parser
never enters STATE_DATA with rxlen == 0, so the out-of-bounds write can
no longer occur.
KASAN, on a frame of 0x7e 0x01 0x00 followed by data bytes (before this
change):
UBSAN: array-index-out-of-bounds in drivers/net/mctp/mctp-serial.c:370
index 74 is out of range for type 'u8 [74]'
BUG: KASAN: slab-out-of-bounds in mctp_serial_tty_receive_buf
Write of size 1 at addr ... by task kworker/u16:0
mctp_serial_tty_receive_buf
tty_ldisc_receive_buf
flush_to_ldisc
Allocated by task 152:
alloc_netdev_mqs
mctp_serial_open
v2: route zero-length frames to STATE_TRAILER instead of STATE_ERR so
the trailer/framing bytes are still consumed (Jeremy Kerr).
Found by 0sec automated security-research tooling (https://0sec.ai).