CVE-2023-52973: linux Use After Free

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2023-52973 is a high (CVSS 7.8) Use After Free vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.29% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 20% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 27-03-2025
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 05-08-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: vc_screen: move load of struct vc_data pointer in vcs_read() to avoid UAF After a call to console_unlock() in vcs_read() the vc_data struct can be freed by vc_deallocate(). Because of that, the struct vc_data pointer load must be done at the top of while loop in vcs_read() to avoid a UAF when vcs_size() is called. Syzkaller reported a UAF in vcs_size(). BUG: KASAN: use-after-free in vcs_size (drivers/tty/vt/vc_screen.c:215) Read of size 4 at addr ffff8881137479a8 by task 4a005ed81e27e65/1537 CPU: 0 PID: 1537 Comm: 4a005ed81e27e65 Not tainted 6.2.0-rc5 #1 Hardware name: Red Hat KVM, BIOS 1.15.0-2.module Call Trace: <TASK> __asan_report_load4_noabort (mm/kasan/report_generic.c:350) vcs_size (drivers/tty/vt/vc_screen.c:215) vcs_read (drivers/tty/vt/vc_screen.c:415) vfs_read (fs/read_write.c:468 fs/read_write.c:450) ... </TASK> Allocated by task 1191: ... kmalloc_trace (mm/slab_common.c:1069) vc_allocate (./include/linux/slab.h:580 ./include/linux/slab.h:720 drivers/tty/vt/vt.c:1128 drivers/tty/vt/vt.c:1108) con_install (drivers/tty/vt/vt.c:3383) tty_init_dev (drivers/tty/tty_io.c:1301 drivers/tty/tty_io.c:1413 drivers/tty/tty_io.c:1390) tty_open (drivers/tty/tty_io.c:2080 drivers/tty/tty_io.c:2126) chrdev_open (fs/char_dev.c:415) do_dentry_open (fs/open.c:883) vfs_open (fs/open.c:1014) ... Freed by task 1548: ... kfree (mm/slab_common.c:1021) vc_port_destruct (drivers/tty/vt/vt.c:1094) tty_port_destructor (drivers/tty/tty_port.c:296) tty_port_put (drivers/tty/tty_port.c:312) vt_disallocate_all (drivers/tty/vt/vt_ioctl.c:662 (discriminator 2)) vt_ioctl (drivers/tty/vt/vt_ioctl.c:903) tty_ioctl (drivers/tty/tty_io.c:2776) ... The buggy address belongs to the object at ffff888113747800 which belongs to the cache kmalloc-1k of size 1024 The buggy address is located 424 bytes inside of 1024-byte region [ffff888113747800, ffff888113747c00) The buggy address belongs to the physical page: page:00000000b3fe6c7c refcount:1 mapcount:0 mapping:0000000000000000 index:0x0 pfn:0x113740 head:00000000b3fe6c7c order:3 compound_mapcount:0 subpages_mapcount:0 compound_pincount:0 anon flags: 0x17ffffc0010200(slab|head|node=0|zone=2|lastcpupid=0x1fffff) raw: 0017ffffc0010200 ffff888100042dc0 0000000000000000 dead000000000001 raw: 0000000000000000 0000000000100010 00000001ffffffff 0000000000000000 page dumped because: kasan: bad access detected Memory state around the buggy address: ffff888113747880: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb ffff888113747900: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb > ffff888113747980: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb ^ ffff888113747a00: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb ffff888113747a80: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb ================================================================== Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint

• CWE-416Use After FreeThe product reuses or references memory after it has been freed. At some point afterward, the memory may be allocated again and saved in another pointer, while the original pointer references a location somewhere within the new allocation. Any operations using the original pointer are no longer valid because the memory "belongs" to the code that operates on the new pointer.