CVE-2022-0185

A heap-based buffer overflow flaw was found in the way the legacy_parse_param function in the Filesystem Context functionality of the Linux kernel verified the supplied parameters length. An unprivileged (in case of unprivileged user namespaces enabled, otherwise needs namespaced CAP_SYS_ADMIN privilege) local user able to open a filesystem that does not support the Filesystem Context API (and thus fallbacks to legacy handling) could use this flaw to escalate their privileges on the system.

This issue affects the Linux kernel packages as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 GA onwards. Previous Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions are not affected.

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.

On non-containerized deployments of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, you can disable user namespaces by setting user.max_user_namespaces to 0:

echo "user.max_user_namespaces=0" > /etc/sysctl.d/userns.conf

sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.d/userns.conf

On containerized deployments, such as Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, do not use this mitigation as the functionality is needed to be enabled.