CVE-2023-52989

Summary

CVE-2023-52989 is a vulnerability affecting the Linux kernel's FireWire subsystem. This issue pertains to a use-after-free condition in the handling of request subactions to the IEC 61883-1 FCP region. The subsystem, which allows multiple user-space listeners to access the region, was found to release the payload data before the listeners executed read(2) operations, potentially leading to memory corruption. A patch has been implemented to address this issue, which involves duplicating the payload object in kernel space for each listener. However, the patch relies on the release_request() function in drivers/firewire/core-cdev.c for releasing the object once the listener has finished processing the response. Unfortunately, this function is never called due to its design, resulting in a memory leak. The commit 281e20323ab7 ("firewire: core: fix use-after-free regression in FCP handler") now explicitly releases the object in ioctl_send_response() to avoid this issue and prevent potential memory leaks. The vulnerability affects Linux kernel versions 2.6.33 and later.

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