CVE-2023-53621

Published Oct 7, 2025

Last updated 9 months ago

Overview

Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: memcontrol: ensure memcg acquired by id is properly set up In the eviction recency check, we attempt to retrieve the memcg to which the folio belonged when it was evicted, by the memcg id stored in the shadow entry. However, there is a chance that the retrieved memcg is not the original memcg that has been killed, but a new one which happens to have the same id. This is a somewhat unfortunate, but acceptable and rare inaccuracy in the heuristics. However, if we retrieve this new memcg between its allocation and when it is properly attached to the memcg hierarchy, we could run into the following NULL pointer exception during the memcg hierarchy traversal done in mem_cgroup_get_nr_swap_pages(): [ 155757.793456] BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 00000000000000c0 [ 155757.807568] #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode [ 155757.818024] #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page [ 155757.828482] PGD 401f77067 P4D 401f77067 PUD 401f76067 PMD 0 [ 155757.839985] Oops: 0000 [#1] SMP [ 155757.887870] RIP: 0010:mem_cgroup_get_nr_swap_pages+0x3d/0xb0 [ 155757.899377] Code: 29 19 4a 02 48 39 f9 74 63 48 8b 97 c0 00 00 00 48 8b b7 58 02 00 00 48 2b b7 c0 01 00 00 48 39 f0 48 0f 4d c6 48 39 d1 74 42 <48> 8b b2 c0 00 00 00 48 8b ba 58 02 00 00 48 2b ba c0 01 00 00 48 [ 155757.937125] RSP: 0018:ffffc9002ecdfbc8 EFLAGS: 00010286 [ 155757.947755] RAX: 00000000003a3b1c RBX: 000007ffffffffff RCX: ffff888280183000 [ 155757.962202] RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0007ffffffffffff RDI: ffff888bbc2d1000 [ 155757.976648] RBP: 0000000000000001 R08: 000000000000000b R09: ffff888ad9cedba0 [ 155757.991094] R10: ffffea0039c07900 R11: 0000000000000010 R12: ffff888b23a7b000 [ 155758.005540] R13: 0000000000000000 R14: ffff888bbc2d1000 R15: 000007ffffc71354 [ 155758.019991] FS: 00007f6234c68640(0000) GS:ffff88903f9c0000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [ 155758.036356] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [ 155758.048023] CR2: 00000000000000c0 CR3: 0000000a83eb8004 CR4: 00000000007706e0 [ 155758.062473] DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 [ 155758.076924] DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 [ 155758.091376] PKRU: 55555554 [ 155758.096957] Call Trace: [ 155758.102016] <TASK> [ 155758.106502] ? __die+0x78/0xc0 [ 155758.112793] ? page_fault_oops+0x286/0x380 [ 155758.121175] ? exc_page_fault+0x5d/0x110 [ 155758.129209] ? asm_exc_page_fault+0x22/0x30 [ 155758.137763] ? mem_cgroup_get_nr_swap_pages+0x3d/0xb0 [ 155758.148060] workingset_test_recent+0xda/0x1b0 [ 155758.157133] workingset_refault+0xca/0x1e0 [ 155758.165508] filemap_add_folio+0x4d/0x70 [ 155758.173538] page_cache_ra_unbounded+0xed/0x190 [ 155758.182919] page_cache_sync_ra+0xd6/0x1e0 [ 155758.191738] filemap_read+0x68d/0xdf0 [ 155758.199495] ? mlx5e_napi_poll+0x123/0x940 [ 155758.207981] ? __napi_schedule+0x55/0x90 [ 155758.216095] __x64_sys_pread64+0x1d6/0x2c0 [ 155758.224601] do_syscall_64+0x3d/0x80 [ 155758.232058] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x46/0xb0 [ 155758.242473] RIP: 0033:0x7f62c29153b5 [ 155758.249938] Code: e8 48 89 75 f0 89 7d f8 48 89 4d e0 e8 b4 e6 f7 ff 41 89 c0 4c 8b 55 e0 48 8b 55 e8 48 8b 75 f0 8b 7d f8 b8 11 00 00 00 0f 05 <48> 3d 00 f0 ff ff 77 33 44 89 c7 48 89 45 f8 e8 e7 e6 f7 ff 48 8b [ 155758.288005] RSP: 002b:00007f6234c5ffd0 EFLAGS: 00000293 ORIG_RAX: 0000000000000011 [ 155758.303474] RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 00007f628c4e70c0 RCX: 00007f62c29153b5 [ 155758.318075] RDX: 000000000003c041 RSI: 00007f61d2986000 RDI: 0000000000000076 [ 155758.332678] RBP: 00007f6234c5fff0 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000064d5230c [ 155758.347452] R10: 000000000027d450 R11: 0000000000000293 R12: 000000000003c041 [ 155758.362044] R13: 00007f61d2986000 R14: 00007f629e11b060 R15: 000000000027d450 [ 155758.376661] </TASK> This patch fixes the issue by moving the memcg's id publication from the alloc stage to ---truncated---
Source
416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
NVD status
Analyzed
Products
linux_kernel

Risk scores

CVSS 3.1

Type
Primary
Base score
7.8
Impact score
5.9
Exploitability score
1.8
Vector string
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Severity
HIGH

Weaknesses

nvd@nist.gov
CWE-476

Social media

Hype score
Not currently trending

Configurations

  1. In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: cgroup: Avoid iteration of dying tasks with zero refcount The commit 260fbcb92bbea ("cgroup: Move dying_tasks cleanup from cgroup_task_release() to cgroup_task_free()") extended the lifetime of tasks on the dying_tasks list. The iterators have provision to go through dying_tasks because of dying threadgroup leaders or explicit CSS_TASK_ITER_WITH_DEAD, however, it was expected that such tasks can obtain a new reference (that is possible before cgroup_task_release()/put_task_struct_rcu_user()). The tasks after cgroup_task_release() and before cgroup_task_free() are subject to race when they may or may not have ->usage count > 0. The race window is between css_task_iter_next() invocations when css_set_lock is released and we may arrive at a new ->task_pos. The iterator should not attempt to resurrect tasks whose ->usage count dropped to zero. (When that happens, __put_task_struct_rcu_cb() is already imminent and the returned task_struct would could be used after free.) As for the fix, we cannot simply check the signal->live count of a task on the dying list because that won't distinguish regular zombies waiting to be reaped from RCU remnant tasks that are going to be free'd. Therefore add an extra check to rule out ->usage==0 tasks from any iteration. The repeat: loop in css_task_iter_advance() doesn't consider ->usage count, so add a new loop to css_task_iter_next() to skip de-used tasks on the dying_list. Rough illustration of the possible race R (reader of cgroup.procs) T (thread) L (group leader) --------------------------------- -------------------------------- -------------------------------- L exits, signal->live > 0 cgroup_task_dead(L) css_set_skip_task_iters() // skips only cset->tasks list_add_tail(&L->cg_list, &cset->dying_tasks) css_task_iter_next() take css_set_lock css_task_iter_advance() leader && signal->live != 0 => it->task_pos = &L->cg_list release css_set_lock T exits --signal->live == 0 cgroup_task_dead(T) // css_set_lock release_task(T) cgroup_task_release(T) release_task(L) // zap_leader cgroup_task_release(L) put_task_struct_rcu_user(L) ...RCU... put_task_struct(L) L->usage = 0 /* L still on dying_tasks */ ...RCU... __put_task_struct(L) css_task_iter_next() // another iteration take css_set_lock it->task_pos = &L->cg_list get_task_struct(L) => addition on 0 drop css_set_lock cgroup_task_free(L) css_set_skip_task_iters() // dying skip comes too late free_task(L) cgroup_procs_show() task_pid_vnr(L)•CVE-2026-98163