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Fencer Vulns
high 7.1

CVE-2023-52842 json

virtio/vsock: Fix uninit-value in virtio_transport_recv_pkt()

published 2024-05-21 2 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2023-59555

cvss
7.1
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:

virtio/vsock: Fix uninit-value in virtio_transport_recv_pkt()

KMSAN reported the following uninit-value access issue:

===================================================== BUG: KMSAN: uninit-value in virtio_transport_recv_pkt+0x1dfb/0x26a0 net/vmw_vsock/virtio_transport_common.c:1421 virtio_transport_recv_pkt+0x1dfb/0x26a0 net/vmw_vsock/virtio_transport_common.c:1421 vsock_loopback_work+0x3bb/0x5a0 net/vmw_vsock/vsock_loopback.c:120 process_one_work kernel/workqueue.c:2630 [inline] process_scheduled_works+0xff6/0x1e60 kernel/workqueue.c:2703 worker_thread+0xeca/0x14d0 kernel/workqueue.c:2784 kthread+0x3cc/0x520 kernel/kthread.c:388 ret_from_fork+0x66/0x80 arch/x86/kernel/process.c:147 ret_from_fork_asm+0x11/0x20 arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:304

Uninit was stored to memory at: virtio_transport_space_update net/vmw_vsock/virtio_transport_common.c:1274 [inline] virtio_transport_recv_pkt+0x1ee8/0x26a0 net/vmw_vsock/virtio_transport_common.c:1415 vsock_loopback_work+0x3bb/0x5a0 net/vmw_vsock/vsock_loopback.c:120 process_one_work kernel/workqueue.c:2630 [inline] process_scheduled_works+0xff6/0x1e60 kernel/workqueue.c:2703 worker_thread+0xeca/0x14d0 kernel/workqueue.c:2784 kthread+0x3cc/0x520 kernel/kthread.c:388 ret_from_fork+0x66/0x80 arch/x86/kernel/process.c:147 ret_from_fork_asm+0x11/0x20 arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:304

Uninit was created at: slab_post_alloc_hook+0x105/0xad0 mm/slab.h:767 slab_alloc_node mm/slub.c:3478 [inline] kmem_cache_alloc_node+0x5a2/0xaf0 mm/slub.c:3523 kmalloc_reserve+0x13c/0x4a0 net/core/skbuff.c:559 __alloc_skb+0x2fd/0x770 net/core/skbuff.c:650 alloc_skb include/linux/skbuff.h:1286 [inline] virtio_vsock_alloc_skb include/linux/virtio_vsock.h:66 [inline] virtio_transport_alloc_skb+0x90/0x11e0 net/vmw_vsock/virtio_transport_common.c:58 virtio_transport_reset_no_sock net/vmw_vsock/virtio_transport_common.c:957 [inline] virtio_transport_recv_pkt+0x1279/0x26a0 net/vmw_vsock/virtio_transport_common.c:1387 vsock_loopback_work+0x3bb/0x5a0 net/vmw_vsock/vsock_loopback.c:120 process_one_work kernel/workqueue.c:2630 [inline] process_scheduled_works+0xff6/0x1e60 kernel/workqueue.c:2703 worker_thread+0xeca/0x14d0 kernel/workqueue.c:2784 kthread+0x3cc/0x520 kernel/kthread.c:388 ret_from_fork+0x66/0x80 arch/x86/kernel/process.c:147 ret_from_fork_asm+0x11/0x20 arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:304

CPU: 1 PID: 10664 Comm: kworker/1:5 Not tainted 6.6.0-rc3-00146-g9f3ebbef746f #3 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.16.2-1.fc38 04/01/2014 Workqueue: vsock-loopback vsock_loopback_work =====================================================

The following simple reproducer can cause the issue described above:

int main(void) { int sock; struct sockaddr_vm addr = { .svm_family = AF_VSOCK, .svm_cid = VMADDR_CID_ANY, .svm_port = 1234, };

sock = socket(AF_VSOCK, SOCK_STREAM, 0); connect(sock, (struct sockaddr *)&addr, sizeof(addr)); return 0; }

This issue occurs because the `buf_alloc` and `fwd_cnt` fields of the `struct virtio_vsock_hdr` are not initialized when a new skb is allocated in `virtio_transport_init_hdr()`. This patch resolves the issue by initializing these fields during allocation.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.6.2, 6.7
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.64-1
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.6.8-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2023-52842

  • 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-2023-52842 updated cvss 4.4

kernel: virtio/vsock: Fix uninit-value in virtio_transport_recv_pkt()

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more
    affected: no fix available
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 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 7.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-908 Use of Uninitialized Resource
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.