Linux Kernel Accelerated Receive Flow Steering Memory Leak Vulnerability

A memory leak vulnerability has been identified in the Linux kernel's ice driver, specifically related to the Accelerated Receive Flow Steering (aRFS) feature. This issue arises during the reconfiguration of Virtual Station Interface (VSI) resources, where memory is allocated without releasing previously allocated resources, leading to a leak. The vulnerability was discovered through a memory leak analysis, which revealed unreferenced objects remaining in memory after they should have been released.

Impact

Exploitation of this vulnerability leads to a memory leak, where allocated memory is not properly released, potentially causing increased memory usage and degradation of system performance over time.

Reproduction

The vulnerability can be reproduced by initializing a VSI, which allocates aRFS objects as part of the initialization process. During a reset, VSI reconfiguration is executed, causing additional memory allocation for aRFS without releasing the previously allocated resources. This sequence of actions creates the memory leak, as the unreferenced objects remain in memory, increasing the overall memory usage.