Re: CVE request - Linux kernel: VFAT slab-based buffer overflow

[Greg KH <greg () kroah com>]

On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 12:33:00AM +0100, Jiri Kosina wrote:
> On Wed, 27 Feb 2013, Greg KH wrote:
>
> > > Hmm, I wonder if perhaps the solution here isn't about spending a lot
> > > of time analyzing hundreds of potentially serious bugs and notifying
> > > the world about them all in an accurate way.  Perhaps the solution is
> > > changing the development model or architecture of the kernel such that
> > > there aren't so many bugs with *serious* impact in the first place.
> > >
> > > Ooops... did I say that out loud?  
> >
> > There's nothing wrong with that, and we have made many changes in the
> > kernel to help mitigate problems before they occur.
> >
> > If you know of any other ways that we can do this, please let us know.
>
> - W^X

I thought we tried this, and had to revert it due to problems it caused
with some dyanmic code generators.  Or am I totally mistaken here?

> - not letting kernel dereference userspace pointers (and PMAP is not 
>   available everywhere, unfortunately)

What do you mean by this?

thanks,

greg k-h