CVE-2021-47162

MEDIUM
Published Mar 25, 2024 Modified Mar 13, 2025 CWE-416

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: tipc: skb_linearize the head skb when reassembling msgs It's not a good idea to append the frag skb to a skb's frag_list if the frag_list already has skbs from elsewhere, such as this skb was created by pskb_copy() where the frag_list was cloned (all the skbs in it were skb_get'ed) and shared by multiple skbs. However, the new appended frag skb should have been only seen by the current skb. Otherwise, it will cause use after free crashes as this appended frag skb are seen by multiple skbs but it only got skb_get called once. The same thing happens with a skb updated by pskb_may_pull() with a skb_cloned skb. Li Shuang has reported quite a few crashes caused by this when doing testing over macvlan devices: [] kernel BUG at net/core/skbuff.c:1970! [] Call Trace: [] skb_clone+0x4d/0xb0 [] macvlan_broadcast+0xd8/0x160 [macvlan] [] macvlan_process_broadcast+0x148/0x150 [macvlan] [] process_one_work+0x1a7/0x360 [] worker_thread+0x30/0x390 [] kernel BUG at mm/usercopy.c:102! [] Call Trace: [] __check_heap_object+0xd3/0x100 [] __check_object_size+0xff/0x16b [] simple_copy_to_iter+0x1c/0x30 [] __skb_datagram_iter+0x7d/0x310 [] __skb_datagram_iter+0x2a5/0x310 [] skb_copy_datagram_iter+0x3b/0x90 [] tipc_recvmsg+0x14a/0x3a0 [tipc] [] ____sys_recvmsg+0x91/0x150 [] ___sys_recvmsg+0x7b/0xc0 [] kernel BUG at mm/slub.c:305! [] Call Trace: [] <IRQ> [] kmem_cache_free+0x3ff/0x400 [] __netif_receive_skb_core+0x12c/0xc40 [] ? kmem_cache_alloc+0x12e/0x270 [] netif_receive_skb_internal+0x3d/0xb0 [] ? get_rx_page_info+0x8e/0xa0 [be2net] [] be_poll+0x6ef/0xd00 [be2net] [] ? irq_exit+0x4f/0x100 [] net_rx_action+0x149/0x3b0 ... This patch is to fix it by linearizing the head skb if it has frag_list set in tipc_buf_append(). Note that we choose to do this before calling skb_unshare(), as __skb_linearize() will avoid skb_copy(). Also, we can not just drop the frag_list either as the early time.

Is your site exposed to CVE-2021-47162?

Run a free security scan — no signup, results in seconds.

CVSS v3.1 Score

5.5
MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Weakness Type (CWE)

CWE-416 Use After Free

Affected Products

Vendor Product
linux linux_kernel
linux linux_kernel
linux linux_kernel
linux linux_kernel
linux linux_kernel
linux linux_kernel
linux linux_kernel
linux linux_kernel
linux linux_kernel
linux linux_kernel

References

Advisories & Patches

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/436d650d374329a591c30339a91fa5078052ed1e https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/4b1761898861117c97066aea6c58f68a7787f0bf https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5489f30bb78ff0dafb4229a69632afc2ba20765c https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/64d17ec9f1ded042c4b188d15734f33486ed9966 https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6da24cfc83ba4f97ea44fc7ae9999a006101755c https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ace300eecbccaa698e2b472843c74a5f33f7dce8 https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b2c8d28c34b3070407cb1741f9ba3f15d0284b8b https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b7df21cf1b79ab7026f545e7bf837bd5750ac026 https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/436d650d374329a591c30339a91fa5078052ed1e https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/4b1761898861117c97066aea6c58f68a7787f0bf https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5489f30bb78ff0dafb4229a69632afc2ba20765c https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/64d17ec9f1ded042c4b188d15734f33486ed9966 https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6da24cfc83ba4f97ea44fc7ae9999a006101755c https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ace300eecbccaa698e2b472843c74a5f33f7dce8 https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b2c8d28c34b3070407cb1741f9ba3f15d0284b8b https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b7df21cf1b79ab7026f545e7bf837bd5750ac026

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2021-47162? +
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: tipc: skb_linearize the head skb when reassembling msgs It's not a good idea to append the frag skb to a skb's frag_list if the frag_list already has skbs from elsewhere, such as this skb was created by pskb_copy() where the frag_list was cloned (all the skbs in it were skb_get'ed) and shared by multiple skbs. However, the new appended frag skb should have been only seen by the current skb. Otherwise, it will cause use after free crashes as this appended frag skb are seen by multiple skbs but it only got skb_get called once. The same thing happens with a skb updated by pskb_may_pull() with a skb_cloned skb. Li Shuang has reported quite a few crashes caused by this when doing testing over macvlan devices: [] kernel BUG at net/core/skbuff.c:1970! [] Call Trace: [] skb_clone+0x4d/0xb0 [] macvlan_broadcast+0xd8/0x160 [macvlan] [] macvlan_process_broadcast+0x148/0x150 [macvlan] [] process_one_work+0x1a7/0x360 [] worker_thread+0x30/0x390 [] kernel BUG at mm/usercopy.c:102! [] Call Trace: [] __check_heap_object+0xd3/0x100 [] __check_object_size+0xff/0x16b [] simple_copy_to_iter+0x1c/0x30 [] __skb_datagram_iter+0x7d/0x310 [] __skb_datagram_iter+0x2a5/0x310 [] skb_copy_datagram_iter+0x3b/0x90 [] tipc_recvmsg+0x14a/0x3a0 [tipc] [] ____sys_recvmsg+0x91/0x150 [] ___sys_recvmsg+0x7b/0xc0 [] kernel BUG at mm/slub.c:305! [] Call Trace: [] <IRQ> [] kmem_cache_free+0x3ff/0x400 [] __netif_receive_skb_core+0x12c/0xc40 [] ? kmem_cache_alloc+0x12e/0x270 [] netif_receive_skb_internal+0x3d/0xb0 [] ? get_rx_page_info+0x8e/0xa0 [be2net] [] be_poll+0x6ef/0xd00 [be2net] [] ? irq_exit+0x4f/0x100 [] net_rx_action+0x149/0x3b0 ... This patch is to fix it by linearizing the head skb if it has frag_list set in tipc_buf_append(). Note that we choose to do this before calling skb_unshare(), as __skb_linearize() will avoid skb_copy(). Also, we can not just drop the frag_list either as the early time. It has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 5.5 (MEDIUM).
How severe is CVE-2021-47162? +
CVE-2021-47162 has a CVSS v3.1 score of 5.5 out of 10, rated MEDIUM. This is a medium-severity vulnerability that should be remediated as part of regular maintenance.
What products are affected by CVE-2021-47162? +
CVE-2021-47162 affects products from linux, specifically: linux_kernel. Check the affected products table above for specific version ranges.
How do I check if I'm vulnerable to CVE-2021-47162? +
You can use Secably's free Website Scanner to check your website for known vulnerabilities. For infrastructure scanning, use the Port Scanner to identify exposed services that may be affected. Check the vendor advisories linked above for specific patch and version information.

Related Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-55406

Buffa is a pure-Rust Protocol Buffers implementation with first-class protobuf editions support. Prior to 0.7.0, a soundness bug in the …
CVE-2026-6040

A heap use-after-free existed when importing the blank-width characters of an ODF number format. A position value read from the …
CVE-2025-24898

rust-openssl is a set of OpenSSL bindings for the Rust programming language. In affected versions `ssl::select_next_proto` can return a slice …
CVE-2025-31115

XZ Utils provide a general-purpose data-compression library plus command-line tools. In XZ Utils 5.3.3alpha to 5.8.0, the multithreaded .xz decoder …
CVE-2025-31498

c-ares is an asynchronous resolver library. From 1.32.3 through 1.34.4, there is a use-after-free in read_answers() when process_answer() may re-enqueue …
CVE-2025-4516

There is an issue in CPython when using `bytes.decode("unicode_escape", error="ignore|replace")`. If you are not using the "unicode_escape" encoding or an …

Don't wait for an exploit

Scan your website for vulnerabilities like CVE-2021-47162 — free, no signup required.