Security Resilience

CVE-2023-52477

Memory Safety in Linux Kernel ≤ 4.14.328

Published
29 February 2024
Modified
09 December 2024
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 5.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0023 14th percentile
Risk Priority 42 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). EPSS scores by FIRST (EPSS SIG), generated by Empirical Security. Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2023-52477 is a medium-severity NULL Pointer Dereference (CWE-476) vulnerability in Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 5.5 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Client Execution (T1203); ranked at the 14th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SA-15 (Development Process, Standards, and Tools) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: usb: hub: Guard against accesses to uninitialized BOS descriptors Many functions in drivers/usb/core/hub.c and drivers/usb/core/hub.h access fields inside udev->bos without checking if it was allocated and initialized. If usb_get_bos_descriptor() fails…

more

for whatever reason, udev->bos will be NULL and those accesses will result in a crash: BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000018 PGD 0 P4D 0 Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP NOPTI CPU: 5 PID: 17818 Comm: kworker/5:1 Tainted: G W 5.15.108-18910-gab0e1cb584e1 #1 <HASH:1f9e 1> Hardware name: Google Kindred/Kindred, BIOS Google_Kindred.12672.413.0 02/03/2021 Workqueue: usb_hub_wq hub_event RIP: 0010:hub_port_reset+0x193/0x788 Code: 89 f7 e8 20 f7 15 00 48 8b 43 08 80 b8 96 03 00 00 03 75 36 0f b7 88 92 03 00 00 81 f9 10 03 00 00 72 27 48 8b 80 a8 03 00 00 <48> 83 78 18 00 74 19 48 89 df 48 8b 75 b0 ba 02 00 00 00 4c 89 e9 RSP: 0018:ffffab740c53fcf8 EFLAGS: 00010246 RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: ffffa1bc5f678000 RCX: 0000000000000310 RDX: fffffffffffffdff RSI: 0000000000000286 RDI: ffffa1be9655b840 RBP: ffffab740c53fd70 R08: 00001b7d5edaa20c R09: ffffffffb005e060 R10: 0000000000000001 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: 0000000000000000 R13: ffffab740c53fd3e R14: 0000000000000032 R15: 0000000000000000 FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffffa1be96540000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 0000000000000018 CR3: 000000022e80c005 CR4: 00000000003706e0 Call Trace: hub_event+0x73f/0x156e ? hub_activate+0x5b7/0x68f process_one_work+0x1a2/0x487 worker_thread+0x11a/0x288 kthread+0x13a/0x152 ? process_one_work+0x487/0x487 ? kthread_associate_blkcg+0x70/0x70 ret_from_fork+0x1f/0x30 Fall back to a default behavior if the BOS descriptor isn't accessible and skip all the functionalities that depend on it: LPM support checks, Super Speed capabilitiy checks, U1/U2 states setup.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution Execution
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in client applications to execute code.
T1687 Exploitation for Defense Impairment Defense Impairment
Adversaries may exploit vulnerabilities in security software, infrastructure, or defensive components to degrade, disable, or otherwise continue to impair their ability to prevent, detect, or respond to malicious activity.
T1499.004 Application or System Exploitation Impact
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities that can cause an application or system to crash and deny availability to users.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

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Affected Assets

linux
linux kernel
6.6 · ≤ 4.14.328 · 4.15 — 4.19.297 · 4.20 — 5.4.259

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and evaluation (including static analysis) directly finds null-dereference bugs before deployment.

Documented development standards and tools can enforce null-safety rules and safe pointer usage.

Engineering principles can mandate defensive coding such as explicit null checks before dereference.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
blocks

Secure SDLC practices (static analysis, code review, safe coding standards) directly prevent NULL dereference bugs during development.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

finds

Security testing can detect NULL dereference defects before release.

prevents

Secure coding standards directly require NULL-pointer checks and safe dereference patterns.

References