Cyber Resilience

CVE-2023-52705

Memory Safety in Linux Kernel ≤ 4.14.306

Published
21 May 2024
Modified
31 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 0.0025 17th percentile
Risk Priority 42 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2023-52705 is a medium-severity Wrap or Wraparound (CWE-191) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 5.5 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 17th 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-8 (Security and Privacy Engineering Principles) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nilfs2: fix underflow in second superblock position calculations Macro NILFS_SB2_OFFSET_BYTES, which computes the position of the second superblock, underflows when the argument device size is less than 4096 bytes. Therefore,…

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when using this macro, it is necessary to check in advance that the device size is not less than a lower limit, or at least that underflow does not occur. The current nilfs2 implementation lacks this check, causing out-of-bound block access when mounting devices smaller than 4096 bytes: I/O error, dev loop0, sector 36028797018963960 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 2 NILFS (loop0): unable to read secondary superblock (blocksize = 1024) In addition, when trying to resize the filesystem to a size below 4096 bytes, this underflow occurs in nilfs_resize_fs(), passing a huge number of segments to nilfs_sufile_resize(), corrupting parameters such as the number of segments in superblocks. This causes excessive loop iterations in nilfs_sufile_resize() during a subsequent resize ioctl, causing semaphore ns_segctor_sem to block for a long time and hang the writer thread: INFO: task segctord:5067 blocked for more than 143 seconds. Not tainted 6.2.0-rc8-syzkaller-00015-gf6feea56f66d #0 "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. task:segctord state:D stack:23456 pid:5067 ppid:2 flags:0x00004000 Call Trace: <TASK> context_switch kernel/sched/core.c:5293 [inline] __schedule+0x1409/0x43f0 kernel/sched/core.c:6606 schedule+0xc3/0x190 kernel/sched/core.c:6682 rwsem_down_write_slowpath+0xfcf/0x14a0 kernel/locking/rwsem.c:1190 nilfs_transaction_lock+0x25c/0x4f0 fs/nilfs2/segment.c:357 nilfs_segctor_thread_construct fs/nilfs2/segment.c:2486 [inline] nilfs_segctor_thread+0x52f/0x1140 fs/nilfs2/segment.c:2570 kthread+0x270/0x300 kernel/kthread.c:376 ret_from_fork+0x1f/0x30 arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:308 </TASK> ... Call Trace: <TASK> folio_mark_accessed+0x51c/0xf00 mm/swap.c:515 __nilfs_get_page_block fs/nilfs2/page.c:42 [inline] nilfs_grab_buffer+0x3d3/0x540 fs/nilfs2/page.c:61 nilfs_mdt_submit_block+0xd7/0x8f0 fs/nilfs2/mdt.c:121 nilfs_mdt_read_block+0xeb/0x430 fs/nilfs2/mdt.c:176 nilfs_mdt_get_block+0x12d/0xbb0 fs/nilfs2/mdt.c:251 nilfs_sufile_get_segment_usage_block fs/nilfs2/sufile.c:92 [inline] nilfs_sufile_truncate_range fs/nilfs2/sufile.c:679 [inline] nilfs_sufile_resize+0x7a3/0x12b0 fs/nilfs2/sufile.c:777 nilfs_resize_fs+0x20c/0xed0 fs/nilfs2/super.c:422 nilfs_ioctl_resize fs/nilfs2/ioctl.c:1033 [inline] nilfs_ioctl+0x137c/0x2440 fs/nilfs2/ioctl.c:1301 ... This fixes these issues by inserting appropriate minimum device size checks or anti-underflow checks, depending on where the macro is used.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution Execution
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in client applications to execute code.
T1210 Exploitation of Remote Services Lateral Movement
Adversaries may exploit remote services to gain unauthorized access to internal systems once inside of a network.
T1212 Exploitation for Credential Access Credential Access
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to collect credentials.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

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CVE-2024-26828Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2023-53226Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2023-53189Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2023-53679Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2026-52919Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2024-50258Same product: Linux Linux Kernel

Affected Assets

linux
linux kernel
6.2 · ≤ 4.14.306 · 4.15 — 4.19.273 · 4.20 — 5.4.232

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and static/dynamic analysis directly find integer underflow defects before code is released.

Security engineering principles require use of safe arithmetic constructs or language features that structurally eliminate integer underflow during subtraction.

Input validation can reject or sanitize values that would cause a subtraction to underflow the representable range.

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 full match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly prevent integer underflow defects via input validation, bounds checking, and static analysis.

ID.RA-01 partial match
prevents

Vulnerability scanning and code analysis can surface underflow flaws after they are introduced.

PR.PS-02 partial match
prevents

Routine patching can remediate known underflow bugs once they are discovered in deployed software.

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 in development catches integer underflow defects before release.

prevents

Secure development lifecycle mandates input validation and arithmetic checks that prevent integer underflow.

prevents

Application security requirements include bounds checking and safe arithmetic to avoid underflow conditions.

prevents

Secure architecture principles require defensive coding patterns that mitigate integer wraparound risks.

prevents

Secure coding standards directly prescribe safe integer handling and overflow/underflow prevention.

References