An unprivileged attacker can craft a user-space process with a malicious ELF binary containing an out-of-range sh_link field. When root-level dtrace attaches to -- or instruments -- that process (via dtrace -p , pid probes, or USDT), the ELF parser reads heap memory beyond the allocated section cache array without any bounds check. This results in an uninitialized/out-of-bounds heap read that can cause a NULL pointer dereference crash of the dtrace process (DoS), or -- depending on heap layout -
An unprivileged attacker can craft a user-space process with a malicious ELF binary containing an out-of-range sh_link field. When root-level dtrace attaches to -- or instruments -- that process (via dtrace -p , pid probes, or USDT), the ELF parser reads heap memory beyond the allocated section cache array without any bounds check. This results in an uninitialized/out-of-bounds heap read that can cause a NULL pointer dereference crash of the dtrace process (DoS), or -- depending on heap layout -- a read-then-use of a garbage pointer controlled by adjacent allocations, providing a foothold toward further exploitation in a privileged context.
Why this VPI (explainable, experimental)
VPI breakdown
| Impact | 44.00 |
| Exploitation signal(No additional exploitation signal) | ×1.00 |
| VPI | 44.00 |
VPI formula vpi-v1