CVE-2023-52988
Published: 27 March 2025
Summary
CVE-2023-52988 is a high-severity Improper Validation of Array Index (CWE-129) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 2.8th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified are NIST 800-53 SI-2 (Flaw Remediation) and RA-5 (Vulnerability Monitoring and Scanning).
Threat & Defense at a Glance
Threat & Defense Details
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5)AI
Directly mandates timely remediation of the array out-of-bounds flaw in the Linux kernel ALSA HDA/VIA driver through patching.
Provides kernel-level memory protections that mitigate unauthorized access from the out-of-bounds array indexing vulnerability.
Enables vulnerability scanning to identify systems running vulnerable Linux kernel versions affected by CVE-2023-52988.
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Local kernel array out-of-bounds vulnerability enabling arbitrary code execution from low privileges, directly mapping to exploitation for privilege escalation.
NVD Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ALSA: hda/via: Avoid potential array out-of-bound in add_secret_dac_path() snd_hda_get_connections() can return a negative error code. It may lead to accessing 'conn' array at a negative index. Found by Linux Verification…
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Center (linuxtesting.org) with SVACE.
Deeper analysisAI
CVE-2023-52988 is an array out-of-bounds access vulnerability in the Linux kernel's ALSA subsystem, specifically affecting the HDA/VIA codec driver in the function add_secret_dac_path(). The issue arises when snd_hda_get_connections() returns a negative error code, which is not properly handled, leading to access of the 'conn' array at a negative index. This flaw, classified under CWE-129 (Improper Validation of Array Index), was identified by the Linux Verification Center (linuxtesting.org) using the SVACE static analysis tool. The vulnerability carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.8.
A local attacker with low privileges (PR:L) can exploit this vulnerability with low attack complexity (AC:L) and no user interaction required (UI:N), as it has local attack vector (AV:L) and unchanged scope (S:U). Successful exploitation could result in high impacts on confidentiality, integrity, and availability (C:H/I:H/A:H), potentially allowing arbitrary code execution, data corruption, or system crashes by triggering the affected code path in the ALSA HDA/VIA driver.
Mitigation involves applying the relevant stable kernel patches, as detailed in the upstream commit references. These include fixes such as 1b9256c96220bcdba287eeeb90e7c910c77f8c46, 2b557fa635e7487f638c0f030c305870839eeda2, 437e50ef6290ac835d526d0e45f466a0aa69ba1b, 6e1f586ddec48d71016b81acf68ba9f49ca54db8, and b9cee506da2b7920b5ea02ccd8e78a907d0ee7aa, which add proper error checking to prevent the invalid array access. Security practitioners should ensure systems with vulnerable VIA HD-audio codecs update to patched kernel versions.
Details
- CWE(s)