User Memory Allocator Security Issue
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- C
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Description
In the current designed, the kernel code calls into the user-space allocators to allocate user-space memory. It is a security risk to call into user-space in kernel-mode because that could be exploited to gain control of the system. That could be fixed by dropping to user mode before trapping into the memory allocators; the memory allocators would then need to trap in order to return (this is already done to return from signal handlers; that logic could be renamed more generally and just used for a generic return trap).
Another place where the system calls into the user code in kernel mode is work_usrstart() to start the user work queue. That is another security hole that should be plugged.
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