Re: x86 vulnerability

From: Matt Chapman (matthewcat_private)
Date: Thu Apr 26 2001 - 17:29:48 PDT

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    On Thu, Apr 26, 2001 at 03:41:49PM +0200, Florian Weimer wrote:
    >
    > Has anybody looked at the LDT modification syscall in the Linux
    > kernel?  The most severe problems with it were fixed back in 1997 or
    > so, but the code seems to have changed substantially since then.
    
    As far as I can see Linux modify_ldt syscall only allows you to
    create code/data segments, not system descriptors (e.g. call gates).
    It is true that some of the values are OR'd in to the destination
    descriptor without masking.  However, system segments need bit
    12 of entry_2 set to 0, and there is a fixed or with 0x7000 which
    thwarts this possibility (lucky the Intel designers didn't choose
    the inverse logic!), and also enforces privilege level 3.
    
    I doubt there's anything nasty one can do with regular segment
    descriptors at DPL 3, since the user already has ones spanning
    the entire address space.
    
    	Matt
    



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