CVE-2023-52993

MEDIUM

Linux Kernel 2.6.18-4.14.305 - NULL Pointer Dereference in Legacy PIC Interrupt Handling

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/i8259: Mark legacy PIC interrupts with IRQ_LEVEL Baoquan reported that after triggering a crash the subsequent crash-kernel fails to boot about half of the time. It triggers a NULL pointer dereference in the periodic tick code. This happens because the legacy timer interrupt (IRQ0) is resent in software which happens in soft interrupt (tasklet) context. In this context get_irq_regs() returns NULL which leads to the NULL pointer dereference. The reason for the resend is a spurious APIC interrupt on the IRQ0 vector which is captured and leads to a resend when the legacy timer interrupt is enabled. This is wrong because the legacy PIC interrupts are level triggered and therefore should never be resent in software, but nothing ever sets the IRQ_LEVEL flag on those interrupts, so the core code does not know about their trigger type. Ensure that IRQ_LEVEL is set when the legacy PCI interrupts are set up.

Scores

CVSS v3 5.5
EPSS 0.0023
EPSS Percentile 13.7%
Attack Vector LOCAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CISA SSVC

Vulnrichment
Exploitation none
Automatable no
Technical Impact partial

Details

CWE
CWE-476
Status published
Products (18)
Linux/Linux < 2.6.18
Linux/Linux 2.6.18
Linux/Linux 4.14.305 - 4.14.*
Linux/Linux 4.19.272 - 4.19.*
Linux/Linux 5.10.166 - 5.10.*
Linux/Linux 5.15.91 - 5.15.*
Linux/Linux 5.4.231 - 5.4.*
Linux/Linux 6.1.9 - 6.1.*
Linux/Linux 6.2
Linux/Linux a4633adcdbc15ac51afcd0e1395de58cee27cf92 - 0b08201158f177aab469e356b4d6af24fdd118df
... and 8 more
Published Mar 27, 2025
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026