Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2023-53487)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2023-53487). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Mitigation: upgrade to 4.19.293, 5.4.255, 5.10.192, 5.15.128, 6.1.47, 6.4.12 or later.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

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

powerpc/rtas_flash: allow user copy to flash block cache objects

With hardened usercopy enabled (CONFIG_HARDENED_USERCOPY=y), using the
/proc/powerpc/rtas/firmware_update interface to prepare a system
firmware update yields a BUG():

kernel BUG at mm/usercopy.c:102!
Oops: Exception in kernel mode, sig: 5 [#1]
LE PAGE_SIZE=64K MMU=Hash SMP NR_CPUS=2048 NUMA pSeries
Modules linked in:
CPU: 0 PID: 2232 Comm: dd Not tainted 6.5.0-rc3+ #2
Hardware name: IBM,8408-E8E POWER8E (raw) 0x4b0201 0xf000004 of:IBM,FW860.50 (SV860_146) hv:phyp pSeries
NIP: c0000000005991d0 LR: c0000000005991cc CTR: 0000000000000000
REGS: c0000000148c76a0 TRAP: 0700 Not tainted (6.5.0-rc3+)
MSR: 8000000000029033 CR: 24002242 XER: 0000000c
CFAR: c0000000001fbd34 IRQMASK: 0
[ ... GPRs omitted ... ]
NIP usercopy_abort+0xa0/0xb0
LR usercopy_abort+0x9c/0xb0
Call Trace:
usercopy_abort+0x9c/0xb0 (unreliable)
__check_heap_object+0x1b4/0x1d0
__check_object_size+0x2d0/0x380
rtas_flash_write+0xe4/0x250
proc_reg_write+0xfc/0x160
vfs_write+0xfc/0x4e0
ksys_write+0x90/0x160
system_call_exception+0x178/0x320
system_call_common+0x160/0x2c4

The blocks of the firmware image are copied directly from user memory
to objects allocated from flash_block_cache, so flash_block_cache must
be created using kmem_cache_create_usercopy() to mark it safe for user
access.

[mpe: Trim and indent oops]

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-2023-53487 has been found in Kernel.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade Kernel to 4.19.293, 5.4.255, 5.10.192, 5.15.128, 6.1.47, 6.4.12 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Kernel CVE-2023-53487" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2023-53487 (Kernel)
Patched: 4.19.293, 5.4.255, 5.10.192, 5.15.128, 6.1.47, 6.4.12 — 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 4.19.293, 5.4.255, 5.10.192, 5.15.128, 6.1.47, 6.4.12.

🛡️ 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 4.19.293, 5.4.255, 5.10.192, 5.15.128, 6.1.47, 6.4.12
```
ステージング環境で 4.19.293, 5.4.255, 5.10.192, 5.15.128, 6.1.47, 6.4.12 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":"4.16.0"},{"fixed":"4.19.293"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"4.20.0"},{"fixed":"5.4.255"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.5.0"},{"fixed":"5.10.192"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.11.0"},{"fixed":"5.15.128"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.16.0"},{"fixed":"6.1.47"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.2.0"},{"fixed":"6.4.12"}]}]

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53487 linux Fixed in: 5.10.197-1
Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53487 linux-hwe-edge