Race condition vulnerability in Linux kernel allows for NULL pointer dereference and system crash

CVE-2018-12232 · HIGH Severity

AV:N/AC:M/AU:N/C:N/I:N/A:C

In net/socket.c in the Linux kernel through 4.17.1, there is a race condition between fchownat and close in cases where they target the same socket file descriptor, related to the sock_close and sockfs_setattr functions. fchownat does not increment the file descriptor reference count, which allows close to set the socket to NULL during fchownat's execution, leading to a NULL pointer dereference and system crash.

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