Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2023-52489)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2023-52489). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Mitigation: upgrade to 5.10.210, 5.15.149, 6.1.76, 6.6.15, 6.7.3 or later.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

mm/sparsemem: fix race in accessing memory_section->usage

The below race is observed on a PFN which falls into the device memory
region with the system memory configuration where PFN's are such that
[ZONE_NORMAL ZONE_DEVICE ZONE_NORMAL]. Since normal zone start and end
pfn contains the device memory PFN's as well, the compaction triggered
will try on the device memory PFN's too though they end up in NOP(because
pfn_to_online_page() returns NULL for ZONE_DEVICE memory sections). When
from other core, the section mappings are being removed for the
ZONE_DEVICE region, that the PFN in question belongs to, on which
compaction is currently being operated is resulting into the kernel crash
with CONFIG_SPASEMEM_VMEMAP enabled. The crash logs can be seen at [1].

compact_zone() memunmap_pages

__pageblock_pfn_to_page
......
(a)pfn_valid():
valid_section()//return true
(b)__remove_pages()->
sparse_remove_section()->
section_deactivate():
[Free the array ms->usage and set
ms->usage = NULL]
pfn_section_valid()
[Access ms->usage which
is NULL]

NOTE: From the above it can be said that the race is reduced to between
the pfn_valid()/pfn_section_valid() and the section deactivate with
SPASEMEM_VMEMAP enabled.

The commit b943f045a9af("mm/sparse: fix kernel crash with
pfn_section_valid check") tried to address the same proble…

Source: OSV.dev (Open Source Vulnerabilities) NVD OSV

Auto-generated summary

Assembled by SecPulse from the source data (CVSS, CWE, affected versions) using templates — no AI involved. Check the original description and references below for exact details.

A vulnerability tracked as CVE-2023-52489 has been found in Kernel.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade Kernel to 5.10.210, 5.15.149, 6.1.76, 6.6.15, 6.7.3 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Kernel CVE-2023-52489" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2023-52489 (Kernel)
Patched: 5.10.210, 5.15.149, 6.1.76, 6.6.15, 6.7.3 — apply immediately
Plan: 1) Audit SBOM/dependencies, 2) Stage→prod upgrade, 3) Add WAF/proxy monitoring on affected endpoints, 4) Hunt IOCs in logs.
Refs: see the GHSA / vendor advisory / patched release linked on this page.

❓ What is the problem

A vulnerability (unclassified) exists in Kernel.

📍 Affected scope

Check the vendor advisory for the affected versions of Kernel.

🔥 Severity

Severity: ?. Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.

🔧 How to fix

Update to 5.10.210, 5.15.149, 6.1.76, 6.6.15, 6.7.3.

🛡️ Workaround

Until the patch is applied: disable the affected feature, apply WAF rules, or restrict access via network ACLs.

🔍 Detection

Search webserver/proxy logs for unusual request patterns matching this CVE's known IOCs. Run grep -r 'Kernel' . against your dependency files (package-lock.json, requirements.txt, go.sum) to find affected services.

Response actions

Concrete steps and command examples for SOC/SRE teams to execute in order

1
Identify exposure identify
```
grep -r 'Kernel' . | grep -v node_modules
```
リポジトリと本番環境の依存ファイル (package-lock.json / requirements.txt / go.sum / Gemfile.lock 等) で Kernel を grep し、稼働しているサービス・バージョンを把握する。
2
Apply patch patch
```
Upgrade Kernel to 5.10.210, 5.15.149, 6.1.76, 6.6.15, 6.7.3
```
ステージング環境で 5.10.210, 5.15.149, 6.1.76, 6.6.15, 6.7.3 に上げて回帰テスト → 本番反映。回帰テストはアプリの主要ハッピーパスを含めること。
3
Post-deployment verification verify
```
Confirm patched version is live in production
```
パッチ適用後、ステージングで PoC または同等の悪用パターンを再現して脆弱性が閉じたことを確認。本番ではアクセスログ・WAF でアラート再発が無いか継続監視。

Affected packages

Linux Kernel

[{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.3.0"},{"fixed":"5.10.210"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.11.0"},{"fixed":"5.15.149"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.16.0"},{"fixed":"6.1.76"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.2.0"},{"fixed":"6.6.15"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.7.0"},{"fixed":"6.7.3"}]}]

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2023-52489 linux Fixed in: 5.10.216-1
Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2023-52489 linux