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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2023-53795 json

iommufd: IOMMUFD_DESTROY should not increase the refcount

published 2025-12-09 11 mo ago modified 2026-08-05 3 mo ago also EUVD-2023-60111

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.1%
EPSS 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 3%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

iommufd: IOMMUFD_DESTROY should not increase the refcount

syzkaller found a race where IOMMUFD_DESTROY increments the refcount:

obj = iommufd_get_object(ucmd->ictx, cmd->id, IOMMUFD_OBJ_ANY); if (IS_ERR(obj)) return PTR_ERR(obj); iommufd_ref_to_users(obj); /* See iommufd_ref_to_users() */ if (!iommufd_object_destroy_user(ucmd->ictx, obj))

As part of the sequence to join the two existing primitives together.

Allowing the refcount the be elevated without holding the destroy_rwsem violates the assumption that all temporary refcount elevations are protected by destroy_rwsem. Racing IOMMUFD_DESTROY with iommufd_object_destroy_user() will cause spurious failures:

WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 3076 at drivers/iommu/iommufd/device.c:477 iommufd_access_destroy+0x18/0x20 drivers/iommu/iommufd/device.c:478 Modules linked in: CPU: 0 PID: 3076 Comm: syz-executor.0 Not tainted 6.3.0-rc1-syzkaller #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 07/03/2023 RIP: 0010:iommufd_access_destroy+0x18/0x20 drivers/iommu/iommufd/device.c:477 Code: e8 3d 4e 00 00 84 c0 74 01 c3 0f 0b c3 0f 1f 44 00 00 f3 0f 1e fa 48 89 fe 48 8b bf a8 00 00 00 e8 1d 4e 00 00 84 c0 74 01 c3 <0f> 0b c3 0f 1f 44 00 00 41 57 41 56 41 55 4c 8d ae d0 00 00 00 41 RSP: 0018:ffffc90003067e08 EFLAGS: 00010246 RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: ffff888109ea0300 RCX: 0000000000000000 RDX: 0000000000000001 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: 00000000ffffffff RBP: 0000000000000004 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: ffff88810bbb3500 R10: ffff88810bbb3e48 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: ffffc90003067e88 R13: ffffc90003067ea8 R14: ffff888101249800 R15: 00000000fffffffe FS: 00007ff7254fe6c0(0000) GS:ffff888237c00000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 0000555557262da8 CR3: 000000010a6fd000 CR4: 0000000000350ef0 Call Trace: <TASK> iommufd_test_create_access drivers/iommu/iommufd/selftest.c:596 [inline] iommufd_test+0x71c/0xcf0 drivers/iommu/iommufd/selftest.c:813 iommufd_fops_ioctl+0x10f/0x1b0 drivers/iommu/iommufd/main.c:337 vfs_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:51 [inline] __do_sys_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:870 [inline] __se_sys_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:856 [inline] __x64_sys_ioctl+0x84/0xc0 fs/ioctl.c:856 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 [inline] do_syscall_64+0x38/0x80 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd

The solution is to not increment the refcount on the IOMMUFD_DESTROY path at all. Instead use the xa_lock to serialize everything. The refcount check == 1 and xa_erase can be done under a single critical region. This avoids the need for any refcount incrementing.

It has the downside that if userspace races destroy with other operations it will get an EBUSY instead of waiting, but this is kind of racing is already dangerous.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.4.8, 6.5
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.4.11-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53795

  • kernel RHEL 9 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4
  • rv RHEL 9 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4
  • perf RHEL 9 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4
  • rtla RHEL 9 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4
  • bpftool RHEL 9 7.3.0-427.13.1.el9_4
  • libperf RHEL 9 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4
  • kernel-rt RHEL 9 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4
  • kernel-64k RHEL 9 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4

red hat advisories RHSA-2024:2394RHSA-2023:6583

  • kernel-rt Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-40.1
  • kernel-source-rt Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-40.1
  • kernel-source Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-39.1
  • kernel-default Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-39.1
  • kernel-kvmsmall Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-39.1
  • kernel-default-base Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-39.1.21.16
  • kernel-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.28.1
  • kernel-syms SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.28.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:20845-1SUSE-SU-2026:20876-1SUSE-SU-2026:20477-1SUSE-SU-2026:20498-1SUSE-SU-2026:0315-1SUSE-SU-2026:0293-1

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-2023-53795 updated cvss 5.8

kernel: iommufd: IOMMUFD_DESTROY should not increase the refcount

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 kernel-rt, kernel-rt-kvm, kernel-rt-core, kernel-rt-modules, kernel-rt-debug-kvm, kernel-rt-debug-core, +12 more
    affected: workaround, no fix available
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 9) rv 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, perf 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, rtla 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, kernel-devel-matched 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, kernel-64k-devel-matched 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, kernel-debug-devel-matched 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, +6 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux BaseOS (v. 9) bpftool 7.3.0-427.13.1.el9_4, kernel 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, kernel-64k 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, kernel-core 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, kernel-tools 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, python3-perf 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, +28 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux CRB (v. 9) libperf 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, kernel-debuginfo-common-s390x 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, kernel-debuginfo-common-aarch64 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, kernel-debuginfo-common-ppc64le 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux NFV (v. 9) kernel-rt 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, kernel-rt-kvm 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, kernel-rt-core 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, kernel-rt-modules 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, kernel-rt-debug-kvm 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, kernel-rt-debug-core 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, +6 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux RT (v. 9) kernel-rt 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, kernel-rt-core 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, kernel-rt-modules 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, kernel-rt-debug-core 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, kernel-rt-modules-core 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, kernel-rt-debug-modules 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4, +4 more
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2024:2394
  • 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 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

Exploit prediction

0.14% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 3% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 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

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.