Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2023-53756)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2023-53756). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Mitigation: upgrade to 5.10.175, 5.15.103, 6.1.16, 6.2.3 or later.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

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

KVM: VMX: Fix crash due to uninitialized current_vmcs

KVM enables 'Enlightened VMCS' and 'Enlightened MSR Bitmap' when running as
a nested hypervisor on top of Hyper-V. When MSR bitmap is updated,
evmcs_touch_msr_bitmap function uses current_vmcs per-cpu variable to mark
that the msr bitmap was changed.

vmx_vcpu_create() modifies the msr bitmap via vmx_disable_intercept_for_msr
-> vmx_msr_bitmap_l01_changed which in the end calls this function. The
function checks for current_vmcs if it is null but the check is
insufficient because current_vmcs is not initialized. Because of this, the
code might incorrectly write to the structure pointed by current_vmcs value
left by another task. Preemption is not disabled, the current task can be
preempted and moved to another CPU while current_vmcs is accessed multiple
times from evmcs_touch_msr_bitmap() which leads to crash.

The manipulation of MSR bitmaps by callers happens only for vmcs01 so the
solution is to use vmx->vmcs01.vmcs instead of current_vmcs.

BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000338
PGD 4e1775067 P4D 0
Oops: 0002 [#1] PREEMPT SMP NOPTI
...
RIP: 0010:vmx_msr_bitmap_l01_changed+0x39/0x50 [kvm_intel]
...
Call Trace:
vmx_disable_intercept_for_msr+0x36/0x260 [kvm_intel]
vmx_vcpu_create+0xe6/0x540 [kvm_intel]
kvm_arch_vcpu_create+0x1d1/0x2e0 [kvm]
kvm_vm_ioctl_create_vcpu+0x178/0x430 [kvm]
kvm_vm_ioctl+0x53…

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-2023-53756 has been found in Kernel.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade Kernel to 5.10.175, 5.15.103, 6.1.16, 6.2.3 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Kernel CVE-2023-53756" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2023-53756 (Kernel)
Patched: 5.10.175, 5.15.103, 6.1.16, 6.2.3 — 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 5.10.175, 5.15.103, 6.1.16, 6.2.3.

🛡️ 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 5.10.175, 5.15.103, 6.1.16, 6.2.3
```
ステージング環境で 5.10.175, 5.15.103, 6.1.16, 6.2.3 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":"4.18.0"},{"fixed":"5.10.175"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.11.0"},{"fixed":"5.15.103"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.16.0"},{"fixed":"6.1.16"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.2.0"},{"fixed":"6.2.3"}]}]

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53756 linux Fixed in: 5.10.178-1
Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53756 linux-hwe-edge