Security Resilience

CVE-2023-52770

Memory Safety in Linux Kernel 6.1.29 – 6.5.13

Published
21 May 2024
Modified
06 January 2025
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 0.0024 14th percentile
Risk Priority 42 floored blend · peak EPSS

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

Summary

CVE-2023-52770 is a medium-severity NULL Pointer Dereference (CWE-476) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 5.5 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique OS Credential Dumping (T1003); 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: f2fs: split initial and dynamic conditions for extent_cache Let's allocate the extent_cache tree without dynamic conditions to avoid a missing condition causing a panic as below. # create a file…

more

w/ a compressed flag # disable the compression # panic while updating extent_cache F2FS-fs (dm-64): Swapfile: last extent is not aligned to section F2FS-fs (dm-64): Swapfile (3) is not align to section: 1) creat(), 2) ioctl(F2FS_IOC_SET_PIN_FILE), 3) fallocate(2097152 * N) Adding 124996k swap on ./swap-file. Priority:0 extents:2 across:17179494468k ================================================================== BUG: KASAN: null-ptr-deref in instrument_atomic_read_write out/common/include/linux/instrumented.h:101 [inline] BUG: KASAN: null-ptr-deref in atomic_try_cmpxchg_acquire out/common/include/asm-generic/atomic-instrumented.h:705 [inline] BUG: KASAN: null-ptr-deref in queued_write_lock out/common/include/asm-generic/qrwlock.h:92 [inline] BUG: KASAN: null-ptr-deref in __raw_write_lock out/common/include/linux/rwlock_api_smp.h:211 [inline] BUG: KASAN: null-ptr-deref in _raw_write_lock+0x5a/0x110 out/common/kernel/locking/spinlock.c:295 Write of size 4 at addr 0000000000000030 by task syz-executor154/3327 CPU: 0 PID: 3327 Comm: syz-executor154 Tainted: G O 5.10.185 #1 Hardware name: emulation qemu-x86/qemu-x86, BIOS 2023.01-21885-gb3cc1cd24d 01/01/2023 Call Trace: __dump_stack out/common/lib/dump_stack.c:77 [inline] dump_stack_lvl+0x17e/0x1c4 out/common/lib/dump_stack.c:118 __kasan_report+0x16c/0x260 out/common/mm/kasan/report.c:415 kasan_report+0x51/0x70 out/common/mm/kasan/report.c:428 kasan_check_range+0x2f3/0x340 out/common/mm/kasan/generic.c:186 __kasan_check_write+0x14/0x20 out/common/mm/kasan/shadow.c:37 instrument_atomic_read_write out/common/include/linux/instrumented.h:101 [inline] atomic_try_cmpxchg_acquire out/common/include/asm-generic/atomic-instrumented.h:705 [inline] queued_write_lock out/common/include/asm-generic/qrwlock.h:92 [inline] __raw_write_lock out/common/include/linux/rwlock_api_smp.h:211 [inline] _raw_write_lock+0x5a/0x110 out/common/kernel/locking/spinlock.c:295 __drop_extent_tree+0xdf/0x2f0 out/common/fs/f2fs/extent_cache.c:1155 f2fs_drop_extent_tree+0x17/0x30 out/common/fs/f2fs/extent_cache.c:1172 f2fs_insert_range out/common/fs/f2fs/file.c:1600 [inline] f2fs_fallocate+0x19fd/0x1f40 out/common/fs/f2fs/file.c:1764 vfs_fallocate+0x514/0x9b0 out/common/fs/open.c:310 ksys_fallocate out/common/fs/open.c:333 [inline] __do_sys_fallocate out/common/fs/open.c:341 [inline] __se_sys_fallocate out/common/fs/open.c:339 [inline] __x64_sys_fallocate+0xb8/0x100 out/common/fs/open.c:339 do_syscall_64+0x35/0x50 out/common/arch/x86/entry/common.c:46

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1003 OS Credential Dumping Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to dump credentials to obtain account login and credential material, normally in the form of a hash or a clear text password.
T1003.007 Proc Filesystem Credential Access
Adversaries may gather credentials from the proc filesystem or `/proc`.
T1005 Data from Local System Collection
Adversaries may search local system sources, such as file systems, configuration files, local databases, virtual machine files, or process memory, to find files of interest and sensitive data prior to Exfiltration.
T1006 Direct Volume Access Stealth
Adversaries may directly access a volume to bypass file access controls and file system monitoring.
T1011 Exfiltration Over Other Network Medium Exfiltration
Adversaries may attempt to exfiltrate data over a different network medium than the command and control channel.
T1012 Query Registry Discovery
Adversaries may interact with the Windows Registry to gather information about the system, configuration, and installed software.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

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Affected Assets

linux
linux kernel
6.1.29 — 6.5.13 · 6.6 — 6.6.3

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 partial 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.

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References