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-2023-53655 is a medium-severity Uncontrolled Recursion (CWE-674) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 5.5 (Medium).
Operationally, ranked at the 6th 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 SI-10 (Information Input Validation) and SC-5 (Denial-of-service Protection) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-31950
Vulnerability Data
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: rcu: Avoid stack overflow due to __rcu_irq_enter_check_tick() being kprobe-ed Registering a kprobe on __rcu_irq_enter_check_tick() can cause kernel stack overflow as shown below. This issue can be reproduced by enabling CONFIG_NO_HZ_FULL…
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and booting the kernel with argument "nohz_full=", and then giving the following commands at the shell prompt: # cd /sys/kernel/tracing/ # echo 'p:mp1 __rcu_irq_enter_check_tick' >> kprobe_events # echo 1 > events/kprobes/enable This commit therefore adds __rcu_irq_enter_check_tick() to the kprobes blacklist using NOKPROBE_SYMBOL(). Insufficient stack space to handle exception! ESR: 0x00000000f2000004 -- BRK (AArch64) FAR: 0x0000ffffccf3e510 Task stack: [0xffff80000ad30000..0xffff80000ad38000] IRQ stack: [0xffff800008050000..0xffff800008058000] Overflow stack: [0xffff089c36f9f310..0xffff089c36fa0310] CPU: 5 PID: 190 Comm: bash Not tainted 6.2.0-rc2-00320-g1f5abbd77e2c #19 Hardware name: linux,dummy-virt (DT) pstate: 400003c5 (nZcv DAIF -PAN -UAO -TCO -DIT -SSBS BTYPE=--) pc : __rcu_irq_enter_check_tick+0x0/0x1b8 lr : ct_nmi_enter+0x11c/0x138 sp : ffff80000ad30080 x29: ffff80000ad30080 x28: ffff089c82e20000 x27: 0000000000000000 x26: 0000000000000000 x25: ffff089c02a8d100 x24: 0000000000000000 x23: 00000000400003c5 x22: 0000ffffccf3e510 x21: ffff089c36fae148 x20: ffff80000ad30120 x19: ffffa8da8fcce148 x18: 0000000000000000 x17: 0000000000000000 x16: 0000000000000000 x15: ffffa8da8e44ea6c x14: ffffa8da8e44e968 x13: ffffa8da8e03136c x12: 1fffe113804d6809 x11: ffff6113804d6809 x10: 0000000000000a60 x9 : dfff800000000000 x8 : ffff089c026b404f x7 : 00009eec7fb297f7 x6 : 0000000000000001 x5 : ffff80000ad30120 x4 : dfff800000000000 x3 : ffffa8da8e3016f4 x2 : 0000000000000003 x1 : 0000000000000000 x0 : 0000000000000000 Kernel panic - not syncing: kernel stack overflow CPU: 5 PID: 190 Comm: bash Not tainted 6.2.0-rc2-00320-g1f5abbd77e2c #19 Hardware name: linux,dummy-virt (DT) Call trace: dump_backtrace+0xf8/0x108 show_stack+0x20/0x30 dump_stack_lvl+0x68/0x84 dump_stack+0x1c/0x38 panic+0x214/0x404 add_taint+0x0/0xf8 panic_bad_stack+0x144/0x160 handle_bad_stack+0x38/0x58 __bad_stack+0x78/0x7c __rcu_irq_enter_check_tick+0x0/0x1b8 arm64_enter_el1_dbg.isra.0+0x14/0x20 el1_dbg+0x2c/0x90 el1h_64_sync_handler+0xcc/0xe8 el1h_64_sync+0x64/0x68 __rcu_irq_enter_check_tick+0x0/0x1b8 arm64_enter_el1_dbg.isra.0+0x14/0x20 el1_dbg+0x2c/0x90 el1h_64_sync_handler+0xcc/0xe8 el1h_64_sync+0x64/0x68 __rcu_irq_enter_check_tick+0x0/0x1b8 arm64_enter_el1_dbg.isra.0+0x14/0x20 el1_dbg+0x2c/0x90 el1h_64_sync_handler+0xcc/0xe8 el1h_64_sync+0x64/0x68 __rcu_irq_enter_check_tick+0x0/0x1b8 [...] el1_dbg+0x2c/0x90 el1h_64_sync_handler+0xcc/0xe8 el1h_64_sync+0x64/0x68 __rcu_irq_enter_check_tick+0x0/0x1b8 arm64_enter_el1_dbg.isra.0+0x14/0x20 el1_dbg+0x2c/0x90 el1h_64_sync_handler+0xcc/0xe8 el1h_64_sync+0x64/0x68 __rcu_irq_enter_check_tick+0x0/0x1b8 arm64_enter_el1_dbg.isra.0+0x14/0x20 el1_dbg+0x2c/0x90 el1h_64_sync_handler+0xcc/0xe8 el1h_64_sync+0x64/0x68 __rcu_irq_enter_check_tick+0x0/0x1b8 el1_interrupt+0x28/0x60 el1h_64_irq_handler+0x18/0x28 el1h_64_irq+0x64/0x68 __ftrace_set_clr_event_nolock+0x98/0x198 __ftrace_set_clr_event+0x58/0x80 system_enable_write+0x144/0x178 vfs_write+0x174/0x738 ksys_write+0xd0/0x188 __arm64_sys_write+0x4c/0x60 invoke_syscall+0x64/0x180 el0_svc_common.constprop.0+0x84/0x160 do_el0_svc+0x48/0xe8 el0_svc+0x34/0xd0 el0t_64_sync_handler+0xb8/0xc0 el0t_64_sync+0x190/0x194 SMP: stopping secondary CPUs Kernel Offset: 0x28da86000000 from 0xffff800008000000 PHYS_OFFSET: 0xfffff76600000000 CPU features: 0x00000,01a00100,0000421b Memory Limit: none
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Input validation can reject or constrain data that would otherwise drive unbounded recursive calls.
DoS protection mechanisms limit the resource-exhaustion impact of uncontrolled recursion without eliminating the flaw.
System monitoring can observe anomalous resource consumption that signals runaway recursion after it begins.
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.
Secure development life cycle requires controls that prevent uncontrolled recursion through design and code review.
A.8.26 only requires that security requirements (including resilience against attacks such as buffer overflows) be identified and specified during development or acquisition; it does not itself enforce, implement, or prevent uncontrolled recursion from being exploitable in the resulting application.
A.8.27 mandates establishing and applying secure engineering principles (defense-in-depth, least privilege, security by design, input distrust, hardening, design reviews) but does not itself stop uncontrolled recursion from being introduced or from consuming excessive resources when present; the weakness can still be exploited.
Secure coding standards directly prohibit or constrain recursive constructs that could exhaust stack or memory.
Security testing in development can detect excessive recursion via static analysis or fuzzing.
Capacity management includes monitoring and limits that mitigate resource exhaustion from runaway recursion.
Hardening callouts derived
DISA STIG baselines are authored against specific weaknesses. Where this CVE cites a broad weakness class, the mapping is not asserted at that abstraction (owner ruling, 2026-09-25: grade only at Base and below), so no rule is shown here rather than a rule shown against the wrong grain.
- No fine-grained STIG row for CWE-674, a class-level weakness, and none of its children carries one either.