CVE-2019-15794

medium
Published 2021-11-09 ยท Modified 2021-11-09
CVSS v3
โ€”
CVSS v4 NEW
โ€”
not yet in upstream
VIR risk
6.5

Description

Overlayfs in the Linux kernel and shiftfs, a non-upstream patch to the Linux kernel included in the Ubuntu 5.0 and 5.3 kernel series, both replace vma->vm_file in their mmap handlers. On error the original value is not restored, and the reference is put for the file to which vm_file points. On upstream kernels this is not an issue, as no callers dereference vm_file following after call_mmap() returns an error. However, the aufs patchs change mmap_region() to replace the fput() using a local variable with vma_fput(), which will fput() vm_file, leading to a refcount underflow.

Predictions

Exploit likelihood
55%
Patch ETA
โ€”

Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.

Mitigations

No mitigations published for this CVE yet.

The vendor-content worker queues fetches as references arrive (check back in a few minutes). Or โ€” if you've already worked around this in production โ€” publish your fix to the community-verified tier.

โœš Propose a mitigation on Community โ†’ Mitigations published via the community go through AI scoring + 2 human reviewers + 7-day silent objection window before landing here with source_tier=community-verified.

Exploits

Public proof-of-concept code below. AS-IS, for defenders and authorised testing only.

Exploit-DB

EDB-47692 dos linux verified
Google Security Research ยท 2019-11-20

Ubuntu 19.10 - ubuntu-aufs-modified mmap_region() Breaks Refcounting in overlayfs/shiftfs Error Path

Source code queued for fetch โ€” refresh in a moment.

OS impact

debian Debian Mixed 5 releases
VersionStatusFixed in
trixie Fixed 5.16.7-1
sid Fixed 5.16.7-1
forky Fixed 5.16.7-1
bullseye Affected โ€”
bookworm Fixed 5.16.7-1
redhat Red Hat Fixed 1 release
VersionStatusFixed in
8 Fixed โ€”

References

Community-verified mitigations for this CVE will appear above when contributors publish them.

Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.