Preface: Unix domain sockets and network sockets have different security characteristics. In general, Unix domain sockets are considered to be more secure than network sockets, as they are not exposed to the network and are only accessible to processes on the same machine.

Background: A Unix domain socket aka UDS or IPC socket (inter-process communication socket) is a data communications endpoint for exchanging data between processes executing on the same host operating system. It is also referred to by its address family AF_UNIX .

DOCA Socket Relay allows Unix Domain Socket (AF_UNIX family) server applications to be offloaded to the DPU while communication between the two sides is proxied by DOCA Comm Channel.

Vulnerability details: A use-after-free vulnerability in the Linux kernel’s af_unix component can be exploited to achieve local privilege escalation. The unix_stream_sendpage() function tries to add data to the last skb in the peer’s recv queue without locking the queue. Thus there is a race where unix_stream_sendpage() could access an skb locklessly that is being released by garbage collection, resulting in use-after-free.

Official announcement: Please refer to the link for details – https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-4622