Linux Kernel vulnerable to DoS via the ipv6_getsockopt_sticky() function

Overview

The Linux Kernel contains a vulnerability that may allow a remote attacker to create a denial-of-service condition.

Description

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is a IP standard that is designed to replace the Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4). The Linux kernel provides IPv6 support, and Linux vendors may enable IPv6 by default.

The Linux kernel contains a condition that may allow a null pointer to be dereferenced during a memory allocation by the ipv6_getsockopt_sticky() function in net/ipv6/ipv6_sockglue.c. Note that this vulnerability may be present in both the 2.4 and 2.6 versions of the Linux kernel.

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Impact

A remote unauthenticated attacker may be able to cause the kernel to panic (Oops) on a vulnerable system, thereby creating a denial of service… If the vulnerable software is running on a server, all clients that rely on the server will also be affected.

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Solution

Upgrade
This issue has been addressed in Linux kernel version 2.6.20.2. Users who do not compile their kernels from source should contact their operating system vendor for updated kernel packages.

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Disable IPv6

If IPv6 functionality is not needed, disabling it may mitigate this vulnerability. Adding alias net-pf-10 ipv6 off to your modprobe configuration file and rebooting may disable IPv6 functionality.

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Vendor Information

920689

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Linux Kernel Archives __ Affected

Updated: March 13, 2007

Status

Affected

Vendor Statement

We have not received a statement from the vendor.

Vendor Information

The vendor has not provided us with any further information regarding this vulnerability.

Addendum

See <http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8134&gt; for more details.

If you have feedback, comments, or additional information about this vulnerability, please send us [email](<mailto:[email protected]?Subject=VU%23920689 Feedback>).

CVSS Metrics

Group	Score	Vector
Base
Temporal
Environmental

References

• <http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8134&gt;
• <http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.20.2&gt;
• <https://www.securecoding.cert.org/confluence/display/seccode/Do+not+dereference+invalid+pointers&gt;
• <http://www.kernel.org/&gt;
• <http://secunia.com/advisories/24493/&gt;
• <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipv6&gt;
• <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipv4&gt;

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Chris Wright for information that was used in this report.

This document was written by Ryan Giobbi.

Other Information

CVE IDs:	CVE-2007-1000
Severity Metric:	3.71 Date Public: