In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
tracing: Fix reading strings from synthetic events
The follow commands caused a crash:
# cd /sys/kernel/tracing
# echo 's:open char file[]' > dynamic_events
# echo 'hist:keys=common_pid:file=filename:onchange($file).trace(open,$file)' > events/syscalls/sys_enter_openat/trigger'
# echo 1 > events/synthetic/open/enable
BOOM!
The problem is that the synthetic event field "char file[]" will read
the value given to it as a string without any memory checks to make sure
the address is valid. The above example will pass in the user space
address and the sythetic event code will happily call strlen() on it
and then strscpy() where either one will cause an oops when accessing
user space addresses.
Use the helper functions from trace_kprobe and trace_eprobe that can
read strings safely (and actually succeed when the address is from user
space and the memory is mapped in).
Now the above can show:
packagekitd-1721 [000] ...2. 104.597170: open: file=/usr/lib/rpm/fileattrs/cmake.attr
in:imjournal-978 [006] ...2. 104.599642: open: file=/var/lib/rsyslog/imjournal.state.tmp
packagekitd-1721 [000] ...2. 104.626308: open: file=/usr/lib/rpm/fileattrs/debuginfo.attr
Publication date: Mon, 15 Sep 2025 14:02:00 +0000