Skip to content
Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2023-53171 json

vfio/type1: prevent underflow of locked_vm via exec()

published 2025-09-15 13 mo ago modified 2026-11-05 3 d ago also EUVD-2023-59805

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 5%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

vfio/type1: prevent underflow of locked_vm via exec()

When a vfio container is preserved across exec, the task does not change, but it gets a new mm with locked_vm=0, and loses the count from existing dma mappings. If the user later unmaps a dma mapping, locked_vm underflows to a large unsigned value, and a subsequent dma map request fails with ENOMEM in __account_locked_vm.

To avoid underflow, grab and save the mm at the time a dma is mapped. Use that mm when adjusting locked_vm, rather than re-acquiring the saved task's mm, which may have changed. If the saved mm is dead, do nothing.

locked_vm is incremented for existing mappings in a subsequent patch.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.10.173, 5.15.99, 6.1.16, 6.2.3, 6.3
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 6.1.20-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53171

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-75.82
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1038.43
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1036.44
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1036.41
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1032.35
  • linux-kvm Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1035.40
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1040.47
  • linux-gkeop Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1022.27

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53171

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 RHEL 9 5.14.0-362.8.1.el9_3
  • rv RHEL 9 5.14.0-362.8.1.el9_3
  • perf RHEL 9 5.14.0-362.8.1.el9_3
  • rtla RHEL 9 5.14.0-362.8.1.el9_3
  • bpftool RHEL 9 7.2.0-362.8.1.el9_3
  • libperf RHEL 9 5.14.0-362.8.1.el9_3
  • kernel-rt RHEL 9 5.14.0-362.8.1.el9_3
  • kernel-64k RHEL 9 5.14.0-362.8.1.el9_3

red hat advisories RHSA-2023:6583

  • kernel-rt SLE Micro 5.5 5.14.21-150500.13.109.1
  • kernel-source-rt SLE Micro 5.5 5.14.21-150500.13.109.1
  • kernel-rt SLE Micro 5.4, SLE Micro 5.3 5.14.21-150400.15.133.1
  • kernel-source-rt SLE Micro 5.4, SLE Micro 5.3 5.14.21-150400.15.133.1
  • kernel-64kb SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-ESPOS 5.14.21-150400.24.179.1
  • kernel-syms SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS +3 more 5.14.21-150400.24.179.1
  • kernel-source SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS +3 more 5.14.21-150400.24.179.1
  • kernel-default SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.4 +7 more 5.14.21-150400.24.179.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:3761-1SUSE-SU-2025:3716-1SUSE-SU-2025:03628-1SUSE-SU-2025:03615-1

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-2023-53171 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: Linux kernel: Denial of Service in vfio/type1 due to locked_vm underflow

  • 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
    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 10 kernel
    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
3 d ago

Exploit prediction

0.16% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 5% 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.