CVE-2024-36962: net: ks8851: Queue RX packets in IRQ handler instead of disabling BHs

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

net: ks8851: Queue RX packets in IRQ handler instead of disabling BHs

Currently the driver uses local_bh_disable()/local_bh_enable() in its
IRQ handler to avoid triggering net_rx_action() softirq on exit from
netif_rx(). The net_rx_action() could trigger this driver .start_xmit
callback, which is protected by the same lock as the IRQ handler, so
calling the .start_xmit from netif_rx() from the IRQ handler critical
section protected by the lock could lead to an attempt to claim the
already claimed lock, and a hang.

The local_bh_disable()/local_bh_enable() approach works only in case
the IRQ handler is protected by a spinlock, but does not work if the
IRQ handler is protected by mutex, i.e. this works for KS8851 with
Parallel bus interface, but not for KS8851 with SPI bus interface.

Remove the BH manipulation and instead of calling netif_rx() inside
the IRQ handler code protected by the lock, queue all the received
SKBs in the IRQ handler into a queue first, and once the IRQ handler
exits the critical section protected by the lock, dequeue all the
queued SKBs and push them all into netif_rx(). At this point, it is
safe to trigger the net_rx_action() softirq, since the netif_rx()
call is outside of the lock that protects the IRQ handler.

Classification

CVE ID: CVE-2024-36962

Affected Products

Vendor: Linux

Product: Linux

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

EPSS Score: 0.05% (probability of being exploited)

EPSS Percentile: 17.83% (scored less or equal to compared to others)

EPSS Date: 2025-02-04 (when was this score calculated)

References

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8a3ff43dcbab7c96f9e8cf2bd1049ab8d6e59545
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ae87f661f3c1a3134a7ed86ab69bf9f12af88993
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7e2901a2a9195da76111f351584bf77552a038f0
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e0863634bf9f7cf36291ebb5bfa2d16632f79c49

Timeline