MEDIUM · 5.5

CVE-2024-35875

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/coco: Require seeding RNG with RDRAND on CoCo systems There are few uses of CoCo that don't rely on working cryptography and h...

Vulnerability Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/coco: Require seeding RNG with RDRAND on CoCo systems There are few uses of CoCo that don't rely on working cryptography and hence a working RNG. Unfortunately, the CoCo threat model means that the VM host cannot be trusted and may actively work against guests to extract secrets or manipulate computation. Since a malicious host can modify or observe nearly all inputs to guests, the only remaining source of entropy for CoCo guests is RDRAND. If RDRAND is broken -- due to CPU hardware fault -- the RNG as a whole is meant to gracefully continue on gathering entropy from other sources, but since there aren't other sources on CoCo, this is catastrophic. This is mostly a concern at boot time when initially seeding the RNG, as after that the consequences of a broken RDRAND are much more theoretical. So, try at boot to seed the RNG using 256 bits of RDRAND output. If this fails, panic(). This will also trigger if the system is booted without RDRAND, as RDRAND is essential for a safe CoCo boot. Add this deliberately to be "just a CoCo x86 driver feature" and not part of the RNG itself. Many device drivers and platforms have some desire to contribute something to the RNG, and add_device_randomness() is specifically meant for this purpose. Any driver can call it with seed data of any quality, or even garbage quality, and it can only possibly make the quality of the RNG better or have no effect, but can never make it worse. Rather than trying to build something into the core of the RNG, consider the particular CoCo issue just a CoCo issue, and therefore separate it all out into driver (well, arch/platform) code. [ bp: Massage commit message. ]

CVSS Score

5.5

MEDIUM

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack Vector
LOCAL
Attack Complexity
LOW
Privileges Required
LOW
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
NONE
Availability
HIGH

Affected Products

VendorProductVersions
LinuxLinux Kernel< 6.1.85

References

FAQ

What is CVE-2024-35875?

CVE-2024-35875 is a vulnerability with a CVSS score of 5.5 (MEDIUM). In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/coco: Require seeding RNG with RDRAND on CoCo systems There are few uses of CoCo that don't rely on working cryptography and h...

How severe is CVE-2024-35875?

CVE-2024-35875 has been rated MEDIUM with a CVSS base score of 5.5/10. Review the CVSS metrics above for detailed severity breakdown.

Is there a patch for CVE-2024-35875?

Check the references section above for vendor advisories and patch information. Affected products include: Linux Linux Kernel.