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

i2c: virtio: disable timeout handling

If a timeout is hit, it can result is incorrect data on the I2C bus
and/or memory corruptions in the guest since the device can still be
operating on the buffers it was given while the guest has freed them.

Here is, for example, the start of a slub_debug splat which was
triggered on the next transfer after one transfer was forced to timeout
by setting a breakpoint in the backend (rust-vmm/vhost-device):

BUG kmalloc-1k (Not tainted): Poison overwritten
First byte 0x1 instead of 0x6b
Allocated in virtio_i2c_xfer+0x65/0x35c age=350 cpu=0 pid=29
__kmalloc+0xc2/0x1c9
virtio_i2c_xfer+0x65/0x35c
__i2c_transfer+0x429/0x57d
i2c_transfer+0x115/0x134
i2cdev_ioctl_rdwr+0x16a/0x1de
i2cdev_ioctl+0x247/0x2ed
vfs_ioctl+0x21/0x30
sys_ioctl+0xb18/0xb41
Freed in virtio_i2c_xfer+0x32e/0x35c age=244 cpu=0 pid=29
kfree+0x1bd/0x1cc
virtio_i2c_xfer+0x32e/0x35c
__i2c_transfer+0x429/0x57d
i2c_transfer+0x115/0x134
i2cdev_ioctl_rdwr+0x16a/0x1de
i2cdev_ioctl+0x247/0x2ed
vfs_ioctl+0x21/0x30
sys_ioctl+0xb18/0xb41

There is no simple fix for this (the driver would have to always create
bounce buffers and hold on to them until the device eventually returns
the buffers), so just disable the timeout support for now.
Fixes

Solution

No solution given by the vendor.


Workaround

No workaround given by the vendor.

History

Mon, 04 Nov 2024 12:15:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'no', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}


cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: Linux

Published:

Updated: 2025-05-04T07:13:36.305Z

Reserved: 2024-05-24T15:11:00.727Z

Link: CVE-2021-47561

cve-icon Vulnrichment

Updated: 2024-08-04T05:39:59.771Z

cve-icon NVD

Status : Awaiting Analysis

Published: 2024-05-24T15:15:20.690

Modified: 2024-11-21T06:36:33.640

Link: CVE-2021-47561

cve-icon Redhat

Severity : Moderate

Publid Date: 2024-05-24T00:00:00Z

Links: CVE-2021-47561 - Bugzilla

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

Updated: 2025-07-12T22:09:48Z