In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
x86/efistub: Use 1:1 file:memory mapping for PE/COFF .compat section
The .compat section is a dummy PE section that contains the address of
the 32-bit entrypoint of the 64-bit kernel image if it is bootable from
32-bit firmware (i.e., CONFIG_EFI_MIXED=y)
This section is only 8 bytes in size and is only referenced from the
loader, and so it is placed at the end of the memory view of the image,
to avoid the need for padding it to 4k, which is required for sections
appearing in the middle of the image.
Unfortunately, this violates the PE/COFF spec, and even if most EFI
loaders will work correctly (including the Tianocore reference
implementation), PE loaders do exist that reject such images, on the
basis that both the file and memory views of the file contents should be
described by the section headers in a monotonically increasing manner
without leaving any gaps.
So reorganize the sections to avoid this issue. This results in a slight
padding overhead (< 4k) which can be avoided if desired by disabling
CONFIG_EFI_MIXED (which is only needed in rare cases these days)
References
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
x86/efistub: Use 1:1 file:memory mapping for PE/COFF .compat section
The .compat section is a dummy PE section that contains the address of
the 32-bit entrypoint of the 64-bit kernel image if it is bootable from
32-bit firmware (i.e., CONFIG_EFI_MIXED=y)
This section is only 8 bytes in size and is only referenced from the
loader, and so it is placed at the end of the memory view of the image,
to avoid the need for padding it to 4k, which is required for sections
appearing in the middle of the image.
Unfortunately, this violates the PE/COFF spec, and even if most EFI
loaders will work correctly (including the Tianocore reference
implementation), PE loaders do exist that reject such images, on the
basis that both the file and memory views of the file contents should be
described by the section headers in a monotonically increasing manner
without leaving any gaps.
So reorganize the sections to avoid this issue. This results in a slight
padding overhead (< 4k) which can be avoided if desired by disabling
CONFIG_EFI_MIXED (which is only needed in rare cases these days)
References