Skip to content
Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2023-52808 json

scsi: hisi_sas: Set debugfs_dir pointer to NULL after removing debugfs

published 2024-05-21 2 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2023-59525

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 15%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

scsi: hisi_sas: Set debugfs_dir pointer to NULL after removing debugfs

If init debugfs failed during device registration due to memory allocation failure, debugfs_remove_recursive() is called, after which debugfs_dir is not set to NULL. debugfs_remove_recursive() will be called again during device removal. As a result, illegal pointer is accessed.

[ 1665.467244] hisi_sas_v3_hw 0000:b4:02.0: failed to init debugfs! ... [ 1669.836708] Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000000000000a0 [ 1669.872669] pc : down_write+0x24/0x70 [ 1669.876315] lr : down_write+0x1c/0x70 [ 1669.879961] sp : ffff000036f53a30 [ 1669.883260] x29: ffff000036f53a30 x28: ffffa027c31549f8 [ 1669.888547] x27: ffffa027c3140000 x26: 0000000000000000 [ 1669.893834] x25: ffffa027bf37c270 x24: ffffa027bf37c270 [ 1669.899122] x23: ffff0000095406b8 x22: ffff0000095406a8 [ 1669.904408] x21: 0000000000000000 x20: ffffa027bf37c310 [ 1669.909695] x19: 00000000000000a0 x18: ffff8027dcd86f10 [ 1669.914982] x17: 0000000000000000 x16: 0000000000000000 [ 1669.920268] x15: 0000000000000000 x14: ffffa0274014f870 [ 1669.925555] x13: 0000000000000040 x12: 0000000000000228 [ 1669.930842] x11: 0000000000000020 x10: 0000000000000bb0 [ 1669.936129] x9 : ffff000036f537f0 x8 : ffff80273088ca10 [ 1669.941416] x7 : 000000000000001d x6 : 00000000ffffffff [ 1669.946702] x5 : ffff000008a36310 x4 : ffff80273088be00 [ 1669.951989] x3 : ffff000009513e90 x2 : 0000000000000000 [ 1669.957276] x1 : 00000000000000a0 x0 : ffffffff00000001 [ 1669.962563] Call trace: [ 1669.965000] down_write+0x24/0x70 [ 1669.968301] debugfs_remove_recursive+0x5c/0x1b0 [ 1669.972905] hisi_sas_debugfs_exit+0x24/0x30 [hisi_sas_main] [ 1669.978541] hisi_sas_v3_remove+0x130/0x150 [hisi_sas_v3_hw] [ 1669.984175] pci_device_remove+0x48/0xd8 [ 1669.988082] device_release_driver_internal+0x1b4/0x250 [ 1669.993282] device_release_driver+0x28/0x38 [ 1669.997534] pci_stop_bus_device+0x84/0xb8 [ 1670.001611] pci_stop_and_remove_bus_device_locked+0x24/0x40 [ 1670.007244] remove_store+0xfc/0x140 [ 1670.010802] dev_attr_store+0x44/0x60 [ 1670.014448] sysfs_kf_write+0x58/0x80 [ 1670.018095] kernfs_fop_write+0xe8/0x1f0 [ 1670.022000] __vfs_write+0x60/0x190 [ 1670.025472] vfs_write+0xac/0x1c0 [ 1670.028771] ksys_write+0x6c/0xd8 [ 1670.032071] __arm64_sys_write+0x24/0x30 [ 1670.035977] el0_svc_common+0x78/0x130 [ 1670.039710] el0_svc_handler+0x38/0x78 [ 1670.043442] el0_svc+0x8/0xc

To fix this, set debugfs_dir to NULL after debugfs_remove_recursive().

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.15.140, 6.1.64, 6.5.13, 6.6.3, 6.7
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.64-1
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.5.13-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2023-52808

  • 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-2023-52808

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

  • kernel-rt Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-9.1
  • kernel-source-rt Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-9.1
  • kernel-source Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-18.1
  • kernel-default Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-18.1
  • kernel-kvmsmall Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-18.1
  • kernel-default-base Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-17.1.1.51
  • kernel-rt Real Time Module 15 SP6, openSUSE Leap 15.6 6.4.0-150600.10.5.1
  • kernel-syms-rt Real Time Module 15 SP6, openSUSE Leap 15.6 6.4.0-150600.10.5.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:20028-1SUSE-SU-2025:20008-1SUSE-SU-2024:2973-1SUSE-SU-2024:2896-1SUSE-SU-2024:2571-1SUSE-SU-2024:2561-1

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-2023-52808 updated cvss 4.4

kernel: scsi: hisi_sas: Set debugfs_dir pointer to NULL after removing debugfs

  • 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, +83 more
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • 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
    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

0.24% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 15% 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

Weakness
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.