Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2023-53172)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2023-53172). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Mitigation: upgrade to 6.3.1 or later.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

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

fsverity: reject FS_IOC_ENABLE_VERITY on mode 3 fds

Commit 56124d6c87fd ("fsverity: support enabling with tree block size <
PAGE_SIZE") changed FS_IOC_ENABLE_VERITY to use __kernel_read() to read
the file's data, instead of direct pagecache accesses.

An unintended consequence of this is that the
'WARN_ON_ONCE(!(file->f_mode & FMODE_READ))' in __kernel_read() became
reachable by fuzz tests. This happens if FS_IOC_ENABLE_VERITY is called
on a fd opened with access mode 3, which means "ioctl access only".

Arguably, FS_IOC_ENABLE_VERITY should work on ioctl-only fds. But
ioctl-only fds are a weird Linux extension that is rarely used and that
few people even know about. (The documentation for FS_IOC_ENABLE_VERITY
even specifically says it requires O_RDONLY.) It's probably not
worthwhile to make the ioctl internally open a new fd just to handle
this case. Thus, just reject the ioctl on such fds for now.

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-2023-53172 has been found in Kernel.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade Kernel to 6.3.1 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Kernel CVE-2023-53172" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2023-53172 (Kernel)
Patched: 6.3.1 — 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 6.3.1.

🛡️ 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 6.3.1
```
ステージング環境で 6.3.1 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":"6.3.0"},{"fixed":"6.3.1"}]}]

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53172 linux Fixed in: 6.3.7-1