HIGH Published 2026-04-01

apparmor DFA Bounds OOB

CVE-2026-23407

CVSS 7.8 / 10.0 NVD

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

KernelScan AI7.8HIGH

01Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: apparmor: fix missing bounds check on DEFAULT table in verify_dfa() The verify_dfa() function only checks DEFAULT_TABLE bounds when the state is not differentially encoded. When the verification loop traverses the differential encoding chain, it reads k = DEFAULT_TABLE[j] and uses k as an array index without validation. A malformed DFA with DEFAULT_TABLE[j] >= state_count, therefore, causes both out-of-bounds reads and writes. [ 57.179855] ================================================================== [ 57.180549] BUG: KASAN: slab-out-of-bounds in verify_dfa+0x59a/0x660 [ 57.180904] Read of size 4 at addr ffff888100eadec4 by task su/993 [ 57.181554] CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 993 Comm: su Not tainted 6.19.0-rc7-next-20260127 #1 PREEMPT(lazy) [ 57.181558] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS 1.16.3-debian-1.16.3-2 04/01/2014 [ 57.181563] Call Trace: [ 57.181572] <TASK> [ 57.181577] dump_stack_lvl+0x5e/0x80 [ 57.181596] print_report+0xc8/0x270 [ 57.181605] ? verify_dfa+0x59a/0x660 [ 57.181608] kasan_report+0x118/0x150 [ 57.181620] ? verify_dfa+0x59a/0x660 [ 57.181623] verify_dfa+0x59a/0x660 [ 57.181627] aa_dfa_unpack+0x1610/0x1740 [ 57.181629] ? __kmalloc_cache_noprof+0x1d0/0x470 [ 57.181640] unpack_pdb+0x86d/0x46b0 [ 57.181647] ? srso_alias_return_thunk+0x5/0xfbef5 [ 57.181653] ? srso_alias_return_thunk+0x5/0xfbef5 [ 57.181656] ? aa_unpack_nameX+0x1a8/0x300 [ 57.181659] aa_unpack+0x20b0/0x4c30 [ 57.181662] ? srso_alias_return_thunk+0x5/0xfbef5 [ 57.181664] ? stack_depot_save_flags+0x33/0x700 [ 57.181681] ? kasan_save_track+0x4f/0x80 [ 57.181683] ? kasan_save_track+0x3e/0x80 [ 57.181686] ? __kasan_kmalloc+0x93/0xb0 [ 57.181688] ? __kvmalloc_node_noprof+0x44a/0x780 [ 57.181693] ? aa_simple_write_to_buffer+0x54/0x130 [ 57.181697] ? policy_update+0x154/0x330 [ 57.181704] aa_replace_profiles+0x15a/0x1dd0 [ 57.181707] ? srso_alias_return_thunk+0x5/0xfbef5 [ 57.181710] ? __kvmalloc_node_noprof+0x44a/0x780 [ 57.181712] ? aa_loaddata_alloc+0x77/0x140 [ 57.181715] ? srso_alias_return_thunk+0x5/0xfbef5 [ 57.181717] ? _copy_from_user+0x2a/0x70 [ 57.181730] policy_update+0x17a/0x330 [ 57.181733] profile_replace+0x153/0x1a0 [ 57.181735] ? rw_verify_area+0x93/0x2d0 [ 57.181740] vfs_write+0x235/0xab0 [ 57.181745] ksys_write+0xb0/0x170 [ 57.181748] do_syscall_64+0x8e/0x660 [ 57.181762] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e [ 57.181765] RIP: 0033:0x7f6192792eb2 Remove the MATCH_FLAG_DIFF_ENCODE condition to validate all DEFAULT_TABLE entries unconditionally.

02KernelScan AI Analysis

Engine v0.2.0

Risk summary

An attacker with the ability to load malformed AppArmor policies can cause out-of-bounds memory reads and writes in the kernel during DFA verification. This could potentially lead to kernel memory corruption, information disclosure, or denial of service. The attack requires local access and typically elevated privileges to modify AppArmor policies.

Affectedsecurity/apparmor/match.c

Vulnerability analysis

Root Cause: The verify_dfa() function in AppArmor's DFA verification code only validates DEFAULT_TABLE bounds when states are not differentially encoded (MATCH_FLAG_DIFF_ENCODE not set). However, when traversing differential encoding chains, the code reads k = DEFAULT_TABLE[j] and uses k as an array index without bounds checking. A malformed DFA with DEFAULT_TABLE[j] >= state_count can cause out-of-bounds memory access.

Attack Surface: Local attack surface requiring the ability to load AppArmor policy profiles. The vulnerability is triggered during policy loading/replacement when processing malformed DFA data structures. Requires write access to AppArmor policy interfaces, typically requiring elevated privileges.

Fix Mechanism: The patch removes the conditional check for MATCH_FLAG_DIFF_ENCODE and validates all DEFAULT_TABLE entries unconditionally. This ensures that DEFAULT_TABLE[i] < state_count for all states, preventing out-of-bounds access regardless of encoding type.

03Fix Versions

Branch	Fixed in	Patch commit
5.10	5.10.253	`555829fd91ea`
5.15	5.15.203	`a75e12ca90c9`
6.1	6.1.169	`22094c996968`
6.12	6.12.77	`76b4d36c5122`
6.18	6.18.18	`5a68e46dfe0c`
6.19	6.19.8	`f39e126e56c6`
6.6	6.6.130	`7c7cf05e0606`
mainline	7.0	`d352873bbefa`