New Linux Kernel Exploit Technique ‘SLUBStick’ Discovered by Researchers
Researchers studying cybersecurity have uncovered a new Linux kernel exploitation method called SLUBStick, which has the potential to escalate a limited heap vulnerability to an arbitrary memory read-and-write primitive.
To reliably execute a cross-cache attack, it first takes advantage of a time side-channel of the allocator, according to a team of researchers from the Graz University of Technology [PDF]. "Specifically, for commonly used generic caches, taking advantage of side-channel leakage raises the success rate to above 99%.
Because the Linux kernel has security protections like Supervisor Mode Access Prevention (SMAP), Kernel address space layout randomization (KASLR), and kernel control flow integrity (kCFI), memory safety flaws affecting it are more difficult to exploit an...