Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
comedi: Fix use of uninitialized memory in do_insn_ioctl() and do_insnlist_ioctl()
syzbot reports a KMSAN kernel-infoleak in `do_insn_ioctl()`. A kernel buffer is allocated to hold `insn->n` samples (each of which is an `unsigned int`). For some instruction types, `insn->n` samples are copied back to user-space, unless an error code is being returned. The problem is that not all the instruction handlers that need to return data to userspace fill in the whole `insn->n` samples, so that there is an information leak. There is a similar syzbot report for `do_insnlist_ioctl()`, although it does not have a reproducer for it at the time of writing.
One culprit is `insn_rw_emulate_bits()` which is used as the handler for `INSN_READ` or `INSN_WRITE` instructions for subdevices that do not have a specific handler for that instruction, but do have an `INSN_BITS` handler. For `INSN_READ` it only fills in at most 1 sample, so if `insn->n` is greater than 1, the remaining `insn->n - 1` samples copied to userspace will be uninitialized kernel data.
Another culprit is `vm80xx_ai_insn_read()` in the "vm80xx" driver. It never returns an error, even if it fails to fill the buffer.
Fix it in `do_insn_ioctl()` and `do_insnlist_ioctl()` by making sure that uninitialized parts of the allocated buffer are zeroed before handling each instruction.
Thanks to Arnaud Lecomte for their fix to `do_insn_ioctl()`. That fix replaced the call to `kmalloc_array()` with `kcalloc()`, but it is not always necessary to clear the whole buffer.
Metrics
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HWeakness enumeration
Affected software
No affected versions have been published.
Timeline
- Published
- Sep 5, 2025
- Last modified
- Oct 19, 2026
- NVD status
- Modified