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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2023-52499 json

powerpc/47x: Fix 47x syscall return crash

published 2024-03-02 2 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2023-57124

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 12%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

powerpc/47x: Fix 47x syscall return crash

Eddie reported that newer kernels were crashing during boot on his 476 FSP2 system:

kernel tried to execute user page (b7ee2000) - exploit attempt? (uid: 0) BUG: Unable to handle kernel instruction fetch Faulting instruction address: 0xb7ee2000 Oops: Kernel access of bad area, sig: 11 [#1] BE PAGE_SIZE=4K FSP-2 Modules linked in: CPU: 0 PID: 61 Comm: mount Not tainted 6.1.55-d23900f.ppcnf-fsp2 #1 Hardware name: ibm,fsp2 476fpe 0x7ff520c0 FSP-2 NIP:  b7ee2000 LR: 8c008000 CTR: 00000000 REGS: bffebd83 TRAP: 0400   Not tainted (6.1.55-d23900f.ppcnf-fs p2) MSR:  00000030 <IR,DR>  CR: 00001000  XER: 20000000 GPR00: c00110ac bffebe63 bffebe7e bffebe88 8c008000 00001000 00000d12 b7ee2000 GPR08: 00000033 00000000 00000000 c139df10 48224824 1016c314 10160000 00000000 GPR16: 10160000 10160000 00000008 00000000 10160000 00000000 10160000 1017f5b0 GPR24: 1017fa50 1017f4f0 1017fa50 1017f740 1017f630 00000000 00000000 1017f4f0 NIP [b7ee2000] 0xb7ee2000 LR [8c008000] 0x8c008000 Call Trace: Instruction dump: XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]---

The problem is in ret_from_syscall where the check for icache_44x_need_flush is done. When the flush is needed the code jumps out-of-line to do the flush, and then intends to jump back to continue the syscall return.

However the branch back to label 1b doesn't return to the correct location, instead branching back just prior to the return to userspace, causing bogus register values to be used by the rfi.

The breakage was introduced by commit 6f76a01173cc ("powerpc/syscall: implement system call entry/exit logic in C for PPC32") which inadvertently removed the "1" label and reused it elsewhere.

Fix it by adding named local labels in the correct locations. Note that the return label needs to be outside the ifdef so that CONFIG_PPC_47x=n compiles.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.15.137, 6.1.59, 6.5.8, 6.6
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.64-1
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.5.8-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2023-52499

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-100.110
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1056.61
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1053.61
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1052.57
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1048.51
  • linux-kvm Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1052.57
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1058.66
  • linux-gkeop Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1038.44

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2023-52499

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2023-52499 updated cvss 4.4

kernel: powerpc/47x: Fix 47x syscall return crash

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +82 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2 y ago

Exploit prediction

0.22% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 12% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.