Bug 2401566 (CVE-2023-53599)

Summary: CVE-2023-53599 kernel: crypto: af_alg - Fix missing initialisation affecting gcm-aes-s390
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
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Priority: unspecified    
Version: unspecifiedCC: rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2025-10-04 16:07:47 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

crypto: af_alg - Fix missing initialisation affecting gcm-aes-s390

Fix af_alg_alloc_areq() to initialise areq->first_rsgl.sgl.sgt.sgl to point
to the scatterlist array in areq->first_rsgl.sgl.sgl.

Without this, the gcm-aes-s390 driver will oops when it tries to do
gcm_walk_start() on req->dst because req->dst is set to the value of
areq->first_rsgl.sgl.sgl by _aead_recvmsg() calling
aead_request_set_crypt().

The problem comes if an empty ciphertext is passed: the loop in
af_alg_get_rsgl() just passes straight out and doesn't set areq->first_rsgl
up.

This isn't a problem on x86_64 using gcmaes_crypt_by_sg() because, as far
as I can tell, that ignores req->dst and only uses req->src[*].

[*] Is this a bug in aesni-intel_glue.c?

The s390x oops looks something like:

 Unable to handle kernel pointer dereference in virtual kernel address space
 Failing address: 0000000a00000000 TEID: 0000000a00000803
 Fault in home space mode while using kernel ASCE.
 AS:00000000a43a0007 R3:0000000000000024
 Oops: 003b ilc:2 [#1] SMP
 ...
 Call Trace:
  [<000003ff7fc3d47e>] gcm_walk_start+0x16/0x28 [aes_s390]
  [<00000000a2a342f2>] crypto_aead_decrypt+0x9a/0xb8
  [<00000000a2a60888>] aead_recvmsg+0x478/0x698
  [<00000000a2e519a0>] sock_recvmsg+0x70/0xb0
  [<00000000a2e51a56>] sock_read_iter+0x76/0xa0
  [<00000000a273e066>] vfs_read+0x26e/0x2a8
  [<00000000a273e8c4>] ksys_read+0xbc/0x100
  [<00000000a311d808>] __do_syscall+0x1d0/0x1f8
  [<00000000a312ff30>] system_call+0x70/0x98
 Last Breaking-Event-Address:
  [<000003ff7fc3e6b4>] gcm_aes_crypt+0x104/0xa68 [aes_s390]