CVE-2023-52935

HIGH

Linux kernel 4.8-5.4.299 - Use-After-Free in collapse_and_free_pmd

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/khugepaged: fix ->anon_vma race If an ->anon_vma is attached to the VMA, collapse_and_free_pmd() requires it to be locked. Page table traversal is allowed under any one of the mmap lock, the anon_vma lock (if the VMA is associated with an anon_vma), and the mapping lock (if the VMA is associated with a mapping); and so to be able to remove page tables, we must hold all three of them. retract_page_tables() bails out if an ->anon_vma is attached, but does this check before holding the mmap lock (as the comment above the check explains). If we racily merged an existing ->anon_vma (shared with a child process) from a neighboring VMA, subsequent rmap traversals on pages belonging to the child will be able to see the page tables that we are concurrently removing while assuming that nothing else can access them. Repeat the ->anon_vma check once we hold the mmap lock to ensure that there really is no concurrent page table access. Hitting this bug causes a lockdep warning in collapse_and_free_pmd(), in the line "lockdep_assert_held_write(&vma->anon_vma->root->rwsem)". It can also lead to use-after-free access.

Scores

CVSS v3 7.8
EPSS 0.0001
EPSS Percentile 2.4%
Attack Vector LOCAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

CISA SSVC

Vulnrichment
Exploitation none
Automatable no
Technical Impact total

Details

CWE
CWE-416
Status published
Products (15)
debian/debian_linux 11.0
Linux/Linux < 4.8
Linux/Linux 4.8
Linux/Linux 5.10.243 - 5.10.*
Linux/Linux 5.15.192 - 5.15.*
Linux/Linux 5.4.299 - 5.4.*
Linux/Linux 6.1.11 - 6.1.*
Linux/Linux 6.2
Linux/Linux f3f0e1d2150b2b99da2cbdfaad000089efe9bf30 - 023f47a8250c6bdb4aebe744db4bf7f73414028b
Linux/Linux f3f0e1d2150b2b99da2cbdfaad000089efe9bf30 - 352fbf61ce776fef18dca6a68680a6cd943dac95
... and 5 more
Published Mar 27, 2025
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026