Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2023-53149)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2023-53149). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Mitigation: upgrade to 6.2.16, 6.3.3 or later.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

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

ext4: avoid deadlock in fs reclaim with page writeback

Ext4 has a filesystem wide lock protecting ext4_writepages() calls to
avoid races with switching of journalled data flag or inode format. This
lock can however cause a deadlock like:

CPU0 CPU1

ext4_writepages()
percpu_down_read(sbi->s_writepages_rwsem);
ext4_change_inode_journal_flag()
percpu_down_write(sbi->s_writepages_rwsem);
- blocks, all readers block from now on
ext4_do_writepages()
ext4_init_io_end()
kmem_cache_zalloc(io_end_cachep, GFP_KERNEL)
fs_reclaim frees dentry...
dentry_unlink_inode()
iput() - last ref =>
iput_final() - inode dirty =>
write_inode_now()...
ext4_writepages() tries to acquire sbi->s_writepages_rwsem
and blocks forever

Make sure we cannot recurse into filesystem reclaim from writeback code
to avoid the deadlock.

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-2023-53149 has been found in Kernel.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade Kernel to 6.2.16, 6.3.3 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Kernel CVE-2023-53149" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2023-53149 (Kernel)
Patched: 6.2.16, 6.3.3 — 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 6.2.16, 6.3.3.

🛡️ 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 6.2.16, 6.3.3
```
ステージング環境で 6.2.16, 6.3.3 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":"4.7.0"},{"fixed":"6.2.16"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.3.0"},{"fixed":"6.3.3"}]}]

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53149 linux
Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53149 linux-azure