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Fencer Intel
high 8.6

CVE-2021-47136 json

net: zero-initialize tc skb extension on allocation

published 2y ago modified 3mo ago also EUVD-2021-33784

cvss
8.6
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.5%
EPSS 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 45%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

net: zero-initialize tc skb extension on allocation

Function skb_ext_add() doesn't initialize created skb extension with any value and leaves it up to the user. However, since extension of type TC_SKB_EXT originally contained only single value tc_skb_ext->chain its users used to just assign the chain value without setting whole extension memory to zero first. This assumption changed when TC_SKB_EXT extension was extended with additional fields but not all users were updated to initialize the new fields which leads to use of uninitialized memory afterwards. UBSAN log:

[ 778.299821] UBSAN: invalid-load in net/openvswitch/flow.c:899:28 [ 778.301495] load of value 107 is not a valid value for type '_Bool' [ 778.303215] CPU: 0 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/0 Not tainted 5.12.0-rc7+ #2 [ 778.304933] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS rel-1.13.0-0-gf21b5a4aeb02-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 [ 778.307901] Call Trace: [ 778.308680] <IRQ> [ 778.309358] dump_stack+0xbb/0x107 [ 778.310307] ubsan_epilogue+0x5/0x40 [ 778.311167] __ubsan_handle_load_invalid_value.cold+0x43/0x48 [ 778.312454] ? memset+0x20/0x40 [ 778.313230] ovs_flow_key_extract.cold+0xf/0x14 [openvswitch] [ 778.314532] ovs_vport_receive+0x19e/0x2e0 [openvswitch] [ 778.315749] ? ovs_vport_find_upcall_portid+0x330/0x330 [openvswitch] [ 778.317188] ? create_prof_cpu_mask+0x20/0x20 [ 778.318220] ? arch_stack_walk+0x82/0xf0 [ 778.319153] ? secondary_startup_64_no_verify+0xb0/0xbb [ 778.320399] ? stack_trace_save+0x91/0xc0 [ 778.321362] ? stack_trace_consume_entry+0x160/0x160 [ 778.322517] ? lock_release+0x52e/0x760 [ 778.323444] netdev_frame_hook+0x323/0x610 [openvswitch] [ 778.324668] ? ovs_netdev_get_vport+0xe0/0xe0 [openvswitch] [ 778.325950] __netif_receive_skb_core+0x771/0x2db0 [ 778.327067] ? lock_downgrade+0x6e0/0x6f0 [ 778.328021] ? lock_acquire+0x565/0x720 [ 778.328940] ? generic_xdp_tx+0x4f0/0x4f0 [ 778.329902] ? inet_gro_receive+0x2a7/0x10a0 [ 778.330914] ? lock_downgrade+0x6f0/0x6f0 [ 778.331867] ? udp4_gro_receive+0x4c4/0x13e0 [ 778.332876] ? lock_release+0x52e/0x760 [ 778.333808] ? dev_gro_receive+0xcc8/0x2380 [ 778.334810] ? lock_downgrade+0x6f0/0x6f0 [ 778.335769] __netif_receive_skb_list_core+0x295/0x820 [ 778.336955] ? process_backlog+0x780/0x780 [ 778.337941] ? mlx5e_rep_tc_netdevice_event_unregister+0x20/0x20 [mlx5_core] [ 778.339613] ? seqcount_lockdep_reader_access.constprop.0+0xa7/0xc0 [ 778.341033] ? kvm_clock_get_cycles+0x14/0x20 [ 778.342072] netif_receive_skb_list_internal+0x5f5/0xcb0 [ 778.343288] ? __kasan_kmalloc+0x7a/0x90 [ 778.344234] ? mlx5e_handle_rx_cqe_mpwrq+0x9e0/0x9e0 [mlx5_core] [ 778.345676] ? mlx5e_xmit_xdp_frame_mpwqe+0x14d0/0x14d0 [mlx5_core] [ 778.347140] ? __netif_receive_skb_list_core+0x820/0x820 [ 778.348351] ? mlx5e_post_rx_mpwqes+0xa6/0x25d0 [mlx5_core] [ 778.349688] ? napi_gro_flush+0x26c/0x3c0 [ 778.350641] napi_complete_done+0x188/0x6b0 [ 778.351627] mlx5e_napi_poll+0x373/0x1b80 [mlx5_core] [ 778.352853] __napi_poll+0x9f/0x510 [ 778.353704] ? mlx5_flow_namespace_set_mode+0x260/0x260 [mlx5_core] [ 778.355158] net_rx_action+0x34c/0xa40 [ 778.356060] ? napi_threaded_poll+0x3d0/0x3d0 [ 778.357083] ? sched_clock_cpu+0x18/0x190 [ 778.358041] ? __common_interrupt+0x8e/0x1a0 [ 778.359045] __do_softirq+0x1ce/0x984 [ 778.359938] __irq_exit_rcu+0x137/0x1d0 [ 778.360865] irq_exit_rcu+0xa/0x20 [ 778.361708] common_interrupt+0x80/0xa0 [ 778.362640] </IRQ> [ 778.363212] asm_common_interrupt+0x1e/0x40 [ 778.364204] RIP: 0010:native_safe_halt+0xe/0x10 [ 778.365273] Code: 4f ff ff ff 4c 89 e7 e8 50 3f 40 fe e9 dc fe ff ff 48 89 df e8 43 3f 40 fe eb 90 cc e9 07 00 00 00 0f 00 2d 74 05 62 00 fb f4 <c3> 90 e9 07 00 00 00 0f 00 2d 64 05 62 00 f4 c3 cc cc 0f 1f 44 00 [ 778.369355] RSP: 0018:ffffffff84407e48 EFLAGS: 00000246 [ 778.370570] RAX ---truncated---

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.8, 5.10.42, 5.12.9, 5.13
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.14.6-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2021-47136

  • linux-bluefield Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1028.31

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2021-47136

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel-64kb SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS, Enterprise Storage 7.1 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1
  • kernel-syms SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1
  • kernel-source SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1
  • kernel-default SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.2 +5 more 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1
  • kernel-preempt SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1
  • kernel-obs-build SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1
  • kernel-default-base SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.2 +3 more 5.3.18-150300.59.158.1.150300.18.92.5
  • kernel-rt SLE Micro 5.2, SLE Micro 5.1 5.3.18-150300.166.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2024:1489-1SUSE-SU-2024:1465-1

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2021-47136 updated cvss 4.4

kernel: net: zero-initialize tc skb extension on allocation

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2y ago

Exploit prediction

0.54% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 45% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 8.6 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:H
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-908 Use of Uninitialized Resource
Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.