CVE-2024-38606

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

crypto: qat - validate slices count returned by FW

The function adf_send_admin_tl_start() enables the telemetry (TL) feature on a QAT device by sending the ICP_QAT_FW_TL_START message to the firmware. This triggers the FW to start writing TL data to a DMA buffer in memory and returns an array containing the number of accelerators of each type (slices) supported by this HW. The pointer to this array is stored in the adf_tl_hw_data data structure called slice_cnt.

The array slice_cnt is then used in the function tl_print_dev_data() to report in debugfs only statistics about the supported accelerators. An incorrect value of the elements in slice_cnt might lead to an out of bounds memory read. At the moment, there isn't an implementation of FW that returns a wrong value, but for robustness validate the slice count array returned by FW.

This vulnerability is rated as Moderate severity rather than Low because a local user with access to administrative interfaces could trigger an out-of-bounds read, potentially leading to a system crash or information disclosure. The issue is restricted to systems utilizing specialized Intel QuickAssist Technology (QAT) hardware with telemetry enabled. In standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux environments, debugfs access is restricted to privileged users, and production firmware is not known to provide the invalid values necessary to trigger the flaw, substantially reducing the practical risk.

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.