oss-security - CVE-2011-4127 kernel: possible privilege escalation via SG

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Message-ID: <20111222170646.GF7178@dhcp-25-225.brq.redhat.com>
Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2011 18:06:47 +0100
From: Petr Matousek <pmatouse@...hat.com>
To: oss-security@...ts.openwall.com
Subject: CVE-2011-4127 kernel: possible privilege escalation via SG_IO ioctl

Paolo Bonzini of Red Hat found out that the host Linux system allows
executing the SG_IO ioctl on a partition or even on an LVM volume, and
will pass the command to the underlying block device. This could be
further exploited in the in the context of virtualization, because
virtio disks support a limited form of SCSI passthrough via the SG_IO
ioctl. If virtio disk is hosted on a partition or LVM volume with
format=raw, tools such as sg_dd can be used to read and write other data
on the same disk --- even data that belongs to the host or to other
guests.

References:
https://lkml.org/lkml/2004/8/12/218
https://lkml.org/lkml/2004/8/12/260
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=752375

Thanks,
-- 
Petr Matousek / Red Hat Security Response Team

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