Bug 2402285 (CVE-2023-53635)

Summary: CVE-2023-53635 kernel: netfilter: conntrack: fix wrong ct->timeout value
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2025-10-07 16:07:19 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

netfilter: conntrack: fix wrong ct->timeout value

(struct nf_conn)->timeout is an interval before the conntrack
confirmed.  After confirmed, it becomes a timestamp.

It is observed that timeout of an unconfirmed conntrack:
- Set by calling ctnetlink_change_timeout(). As a result,
  `nfct_time_stamp` was wrongly added to `ct->timeout` twice.
- Get by calling ctnetlink_dump_timeout(). As a result,
  `nfct_time_stamp` was wrongly subtracted.

Call Trace:
 <TASK>
 dump_stack_lvl
 ctnetlink_dump_timeout
 __ctnetlink_glue_build
 ctnetlink_glue_build
 __nfqnl_enqueue_packet
 nf_queue
 nf_hook_slow
 ip_mc_output
 ? __pfx_ip_finish_output
 ip_send_skb
 ? __pfx_dst_output
 udp_send_skb
 udp_sendmsg
 ? __pfx_ip_generic_getfrag
 sock_sendmsg

Separate the 2 cases in:
- Setting `ct->timeout` in __nf_ct_set_timeout().
- Getting `ct->timeout` in ctnetlink_dump_timeout().

Pablo appends:

Update ctnetlink to set up the timeout _after_ the IPS_CONFIRMED flag is
set on, otherwise conntrack creation via ctnetlink breaks.

Note that the problem described in this patch occurs since the
introduction of the nfnetlink_queue conntrack support, select a
sufficiently old Fixes: tag for -stable kernel to pick up this fix.