The 2023 Pwnie Nominee For Best Privilege Escalation Bug

UNCONTAINED: Uncovering Container Confusion in the Linux Kernel

Jakob Koschel, Pietro Borrello, Daniele Cono D’Elia, Herbert Bos, Cristiano Giuffrida

This is a story of the discovery and analysis of container confusion: a novel class of subtle type confusion bugs. Caused by the pervasive (and barely studied) introduction of object-oriented features in large C programs, for instance using the common CONTAINER_OF macro in the Linux kernel, they provide a new and fertile hunting ground for attackers and additional grief for defenders.