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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2023-52836 json

locking/ww_mutex/test: Fix potential workqueue corruption

published 2024-05-21 2 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2023-59550

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.3%
EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 17%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

locking/ww_mutex/test: Fix potential workqueue corruption

In some cases running with the test-ww_mutex code, I was seeing odd behavior where sometimes it seemed flush_workqueue was returning before all the work threads were finished.

Often this would cause strange crashes as the mutexes would be freed while they were being used.

Looking at the code, there is a lifetime problem as the controlling thread that spawns the work allocates the "struct stress" structures that are passed to the workqueue threads. Then when the workqueue threads are finished, they free the stress struct that was passed to them.

Unfortunately the workqueue work_struct node is in the stress struct. Which means the work_struct is freed before the work thread returns and while flush_workqueue is waiting.

It seems like a better idea to have the controlling thread both allocate and free the stress structures, so that we can be sure we don't corrupt the workqueue by freeing the structure prematurely.

So this patch reworks the test to do so, and with this change I no longer see the early flush_workqueue returns.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 4.14.331, 4.19.300, 5.4.262, 5.10.202, 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 6.6.8-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2023-52836

  • linux Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-173.191
  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-100.110
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1120.130
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1056.61
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1124.133
  • 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 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1067.72

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2023-52836

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-2024:2571-1

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-2023-52836 updated cvss 4.4

kernel: locking/ww_mutex/test: Fix potential workqueue corruption

  • 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, +83 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 ICSA-25-226-15 updated

Siemens SINEC OS

  • Siemens RUGGEDCOM RST2428P (6GK6242-6PA00) Siemens SCALANCE XC-300/XR-300/XC-400/XR-500WG/XR-500 family Siemens SCALANCE XCM-/XRM-/XCH-/XRH-300 family
    not affected

Facts from CISA's republication of the vendor's own advisory (CSAF); the linked advisory is the authoritative source. CISA notification · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2 y ago

Exploit prediction

0.26% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 17% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/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.