published June 18, 2025
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
rseq: Fix segfault on registration when rseq_cs is non-zero
The rseq_cs field is documented as being set to 0 by user-space prior to
registration, however this is not currently enforced by the kernel. This
can result in a segfault on return to user-space if the value stored in
the rseq_cs field doesn't point to a valid struct rseq_cs.
The correct solution to this would be to fail the rseq registration when
the rseq_cs field is non-zero. However, some older versions of glibc
will reuse the rseq area of previous threads without clearing the
rseq_cs field and will also terminate the process if the rseq
registration fails in a secondary thread. This wasn't caught in testing
because in this case the leftover rseq_cs does point to a valid struct
rseq_cs.
What we can do is clear the rseq_cs field on registration when it's
non-zero which will prevent segfaults on registration and won't break
the glibc versions that reuse rseq areas on thread creation.