CVE-2023-53856

Linux Kernel 4.15.0-6.5.2 - DoS via Unresolved Symbol in OverlayFS

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: of: overlay: Call of_changeset_init() early When of_overlay_fdt_apply() fails, the changeset may be partially applied, and the caller is still expected to call of_overlay_remove() to clean up this partial state. However, of_overlay_apply() calls of_resolve_phandles() before init_overlay_changeset(). Hence if the overlay fails to apply due to an unresolved symbol, the overlay_changeset.cset.entries list is still uninitialized, and cleanup will crash with a NULL-pointer dereference in overlay_removal_is_ok(). Fix this by moving the call to of_changeset_init() from init_overlay_changeset() to of_overlay_fdt_apply(), where all other early initialization is done.

Scores

EPSS 0.0020
EPSS Percentile 10.5%

Details

Status published
Products (16)
linux/Kernel 4.15.0 - 5.15.132linux
linux/Kernel 5.16.0 - 6.1.53linux
linux/Kernel 6.2.0 - 6.4.16linux
linux/Kernel 6.5.0 - 6.5.3linux
Linux/Linux < 4.15
Linux/Linux 4.15
Linux/Linux 5.15.132 - 5.15.*
Linux/Linux 6.1.53 - 6.1.*
Linux/Linux 6.4.16 - 6.4.*
Linux/Linux 6.5.3 - 6.5.*
... and 6 more
Published Dec 09, 2025
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026