CVE-2013-1774: Linux kernel Edgeport USB Serial Converter NULL Pointer Dereference

This is a vulnerability fixed by Wolfgang Frisch and the buggy code resides in drivers/usb/serial/io_ti.c as you can see below.

static void chase_port(struct edgeport_port *port, unsigned long timeout,
								int flush)
{
	int baud_rate;
	struct tty_struct *tty = tty_port_tty_get(&port->port->port);
	struct usb_serial *serial = port->port->serial;
	wait_queue_t wait;
	unsigned long flags;
   ...
	remove_wait_queue(&tty->write_wait, &wait);
   ...
	tty_kref_put(tty);
   ...
}

If the equivalent /dev/ttyUSB device file is in use while the device is disconnected then any call to chase_port() (used to chase the port, close and flush it) will lead to NULL pointer dereference since there is no longer a ‘tty’ associated with it. The fix was to add a simple check for this case.

	unsigned long flags;
+	if (!tty)
+		return;
+
	if (!timeout)