Malicious Code Execution in Bhyve Userspace via Uninitialized Memory Allocation

CVE-2024-8178

What is CVE-2024-8178?

The vulnerability arises from the ctl_write_buffer and ctl_read_buffer functions within the FreeBSD Operating System, which allocate memory to be utilized in userspace without proper initialization. This oversight allows malicious software operating within a guest virtual machine to exploit the allocated, uninitialized memory. By taking advantage of this flaw, attackers could execute arbitrary code on the host system, particularly in the context of the bhyve userspace process that usually operates with root privileges. Although bhyve employs a Capsicum sandboxing mechanism to limit the capabilities of the running process, the risk remains significant, as a malicious iSCSI initiator could conduct remote code execution on the iSCSI target host.

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