CVE-2024-50102

MEDIUMCVSS 5.5/10EPSS 0.24%

Last modified

CVE-2024-50102 is a medium-severity vulnerability rated 5.5/10 on the CVSS scale. In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86: fix user address masking non-canonical speculation issue It turns out that AMD has a "Meltdown Lite(tm)" issue with non-canonical accesses in kernel space. And so using just the high bit to decide whether an access is in user space or kernel space ends up with the good old "leak speculative data" if you have the right gadget using the result: CVE-2020-12965 “Transient Execution of Non-Canonical Accesses“ Now, the kernel surrounds the access with a STAC/CLAC pair, and those instructions end up serializing execution on older Zen architectures, which closes the speculation window. But that was true only up until Zen 5, which renames the AC bit [1]. That improves performance of STAC/CLAC a lot, but also means that the speculation window is now open. Note that this affects not just the new address masking, but also the regular valid_user_address() check used by access_ok(), and the asm version of the sign bit check in the get_user() helpers. It does not affect put_user() or clear_user() variants, since there's no speculative result to be used in a gadget for those operations.. EPSS estimates a 0.24% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86: fix user address masking non-canonical speculation issue It turns out that AMD has a "Meltdown Lite(tm)" issue with non-canonical accesses in kernel space. And so using just the high bit to decide whether an access is in user space or kernel space ends up with the good old "leak speculative data" if you have the right gadget using the result: CVE-2020-12965 “Transient Execution of Non-Canonical Accesses“ Now, the kernel surrounds the access with a STAC/CLAC pair, and those instructions end up serializing execution on older Zen architectures, which closes the speculation window. But that was true only up until Zen 5, which renames the AC bit [1]. That improves performance of STAC/CLAC a lot, but also means that the speculation window is now open. Note that this affects not just the new address masking, but also the regular valid_user_address() check used by access_ok(), and the asm version of the sign bit check in the get_user() helpers. It does not affect put_user() or clear_user() variants, since there's no speculative result to be used in a gadget for those operations.

Metrics

CVSS 3.1
5.5/10

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

EPSS Probability
0.24%

14.8th percentile

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days. Learn more

Weakness Enumeration

Affected Software

VendorProductVersionsUpdate
LinuxLinux Kernel>= 6.4, < 6.11.6
LinuxLinux Kernel6.12Rc1

References

Timeline

Published
Last Modified
Status
Modified

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2024-50102?
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86: fix user address masking non-canonical speculation issue It turns out that AMD has a "Meltdown Lite(tm)" issue with non-canonical accesses in kernel space. And so using just the high bit to decide whether an access is in user space or kernel space ends up with the good old "leak speculative data" if you have the right gadget using the result: CVE-2020-12965 “Transient Execution of Non-Canonical Accesses“ Now, the kernel surrounds the access with a STAC/CLAC pair, and those instructions end up serializing execution on older Zen architectures, which closes the speculation window. But that was true only up until Zen 5, which renames the AC bit [1]. That improves performance of STAC/CLAC a lot, but also means that the speculation window is now open. Note that this affects not just the new address masking, but also the regular valid_user_address() check used by access_ok(), and the asm version of the sign bit check in the get_user() helpers. It does not affect put_user() or clear_user() variants, since there's no speculative result to be used in a gadget for those operations.
How severe is CVE-2024-50102?
CVE-2024-50102 has a CVSS score of 5.5/10 (MEDIUM severity). The EPSS model estimates a 0.24% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.
How do I fix CVE-2024-50102?
Check the vendor references and advisories linked above for patched versions and mitigation guidance. You can also run a Strix scan to test if your systems are affected.

Are you affected by CVE-2024-50102?

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Source: NVD / NIST