Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2023-52889 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 Endpoint Denial of Service (T1499); 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
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-59602
Vulnerability Data
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: apparmor: Fix null pointer deref when receiving skb during sock creation The panic below is observed when receiving ICMP packets with secmark set while an ICMP raw socket is being…
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created. SK_CTX(sk)->label is updated in apparmor_socket_post_create(), but the packet is delivered to the socket before that, causing the null pointer dereference. Drop the packet if label context is not set. BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 000000000000004c #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page PGD 0 P4D 0 Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP NOPTI CPU: 0 PID: 407 Comm: a.out Not tainted 6.4.12-arch1-1 #1 3e6fa2753a2d75925c34ecb78e22e85a65d083df Hardware name: VMware, Inc. VMware Virtual Platform/440BX Desktop Reference Platform, BIOS 6.00 05/28/2020 RIP: 0010:aa_label_next_confined+0xb/0x40 Code: 00 00 48 89 ef e8 d5 25 0c 00 e9 66 ff ff ff 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 66 0f 1f 00 0f 1f 44 00 00 89 f0 <8b> 77 4c 39 c6 7e 1f 48 63 d0 48 8d 14 d7 eb 0b 83 c0 01 48 83 c2 RSP: 0018:ffffa92940003b08 EFLAGS: 00010246 RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: 000000000000000e RDX: ffffa92940003be8 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: 0000000000000000 RBP: ffff8b57471e7800 R08: ffff8b574c642400 R09: 0000000000000002 R10: ffffffffbd820eeb R11: ffffffffbeb7ff00 R12: ffff8b574c642400 R13: 0000000000000001 R14: 0000000000000001 R15: 0000000000000000 FS: 00007fb092ea7640(0000) GS:ffff8b577bc00000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 000000000000004c CR3: 00000001020f2005 CR4: 00000000007706f0 PKRU: 55555554 Call Trace: <IRQ> ? __die+0x23/0x70 ? page_fault_oops+0x171/0x4e0 ? exc_page_fault+0x7f/0x180 ? asm_exc_page_fault+0x26/0x30 ? aa_label_next_confined+0xb/0x40 apparmor_secmark_check+0xec/0x330 security_sock_rcv_skb+0x35/0x50 sk_filter_trim_cap+0x47/0x250 sock_queue_rcv_skb_reason+0x20/0x60 raw_rcv+0x13c/0x210 raw_local_deliver+0x1f3/0x250 ip_protocol_deliver_rcu+0x4f/0x2f0 ip_local_deliver_finish+0x76/0xa0 __netif_receive_skb_one_core+0x89/0xa0 netif_receive_skb+0x119/0x170 ? __netdev_alloc_skb+0x3d/0x140 vmxnet3_rq_rx_complete+0xb23/0x1010 [vmxnet3 56a84f9c97178c57a43a24ec073b45a9d6f01f3a] vmxnet3_poll_rx_only+0x36/0xb0 [vmxnet3 56a84f9c97178c57a43a24ec073b45a9d6f01f3a] __napi_poll+0x28/0x1b0 net_rx_action+0x2a4/0x380 __do_softirq+0xd1/0x2c8 __irq_exit_rcu+0xbb/0xf0 common_interrupt+0x86/0xa0 </IRQ> <TASK> asm_common_interrupt+0x26/0x40 RIP: 0010:apparmor_socket_post_create+0xb/0x200 Code: 08 48 85 ff 75 a1 eb b1 0f 1f 80 00 00 00 00 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 f3 0f 1e fa 0f 1f 44 00 00 41 54 <55> 48 89 fd 53 45 85 c0 0f 84 b2 00 00 00 48 8b 1d 80 56 3f 02 48 RSP: 0018:ffffa92940ce7e50 EFLAGS: 00000286 RAX: ffffffffbc756440 RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: 0000000000000001 RDX: 0000000000000003 RSI: 0000000000000002 RDI: ffff8b574eaab740 RBP: 0000000000000001 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000 R10: ffff8b57444cec70 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: 0000000000000003 R13: 0000000000000002 R14: ffff8b574eaab740 R15: ffffffffbd8e4748 ? __pfx_apparmor_socket_post_create+0x10/0x10 security_socket_post_create+0x4b/0x80 __sock_create+0x176/0x1f0 __sys_socket+0x89/0x100 __x64_sys_socket+0x17/0x20 do_syscall_64+0x5d/0x90 ? do_syscall_64+0x6c/0x90 ? do_syscall_64+0x6c/0x90 ? do_syscall_64+0x6c/0x90 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x72/0xdc
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
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.
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.
Security testing can detect NULL dereference defects before release.
Secure SDLC mandates defensive coding practices that can prevent NULL dereferences.
Application security requirements can specify input validation and pointer-safety rules.
Secure architecture principles encourage defensive design that avoids unsafe pointer use.
Secure coding standards directly require NULL-pointer checks and safe dereference patterns.