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🛡️ CVE-2023-52705 — kernel

🟡 CVSS 5.5 — Medium ✅ No Known Exploit NVD
5.5
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

nilfs2: fix underflow in second superblock position calculations

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

nilfs2: fix underflow in second superblock position calculations

Macro NILFS_SB2_OFFSET_BYTES, which computes the position of the second

superblock, underflows when the argument device size is less than 4096

bytes. Therefore, when using this macro, it is necessary to check in

advance that the device size is not less than a lower limit, or at least

that underflow does not occur.

The current nilfs2 implementation lacks this check, causing out-of-bound

block access when mounting devices smaller than 4096 bytes:

I/O error, dev loop0, sector 36028797018963960 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0

phys_seg 1 prio class 2

NILFS (loop0): unable to read secondary superblock (blocksize = 1024)

In addition, when trying to resize the filesystem to a size below 4096

bytes, this underflow occurs in nilfs_resize_fs(), passing a huge number

of segments to nilfs_sufile_resize(), corrupting parameters such as the

number of segments in superblocks. This causes excessive loop iterations

in nilfs_sufile_resize() during a subsequent resize ioctl, causing

semaphore ns_segctor_sem to block for a long time and hang the writer

thread:

INFO: task segctord:5067 blocked for more than 143 seconds.

Not tainted 6.2.0-rc8-syzkaller-00015-gf6feea56f66d #0

"echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message.

task:segctord state:D stack:23456 pid:5067 ppid:2

flags:0x00004000

Call Trace:

<TASK>

context_switch kernel/sched/core.c:5293 [inline]

__schedule+0x1409/0x43f0 kernel/sched/core.c:6606

schedule+0xc3/0x190 kernel/sched/core.c:6682

rwsem_down_write_slowpath+0xfcf/0x14a0 kernel/locking/rwsem.c:1190

nilfs_transaction_lock+0x25c/0x4f0 fs/nilfs2/segment.c:357

nilfs_segctor_thread_construct fs/nilfs2/segment.c:2486 [inline]

nilfs_segctor_thread+0x52f/0x1140 fs/nilfs2/segment.c:2570

kthread+0x270/0x300 kernel/kthread.c:376

ret_from_fork+0x1f/0x30 arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:308

</TASK>

...

Call Trace:

<TASK>

folio_mark_accessed+0x51c/0xf00 mm/swap.c:515

__nilfs_get_page_block fs/nilfs2/page.c:42 [inline]

nilfs_grab_buffer+0x3d3/0x540 fs/nilfs2/page.c:61

nilfs_mdt_submit_block+0xd7/0x8f0 fs/nilfs2/mdt.c:121

nilfs_mdt_read_block+0xeb/0x430 fs/nilfs2/mdt.c:176

nilfs_mdt_get_block+0x12d/0xbb0 fs/nilfs2/mdt.c:251

nilfs_sufile_get_segment_usage_block fs/nilfs2/sufile.c:92 [inline]

nilfs_sufile_truncate_range fs/nilfs2/sufile.c:679 [inline]

nilfs_sufile_resize+0x7a3/0x12b0 fs/nilfs2/sufile.c:777

nilfs_resize_fs+0x20c/0xed0 fs/nilfs2/super.c:422

nilfs_ioctl_resize fs/nilfs2/ioctl.c:1033 [inline]

nilfs_ioctl+0x137c/0x2440 fs/nilfs2/ioctl.c:1301

...

This fixes these issues by inserting appropriate minimum device size

checks or anti-underflow checks, depending on where the macro is used.

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached with local access to the system, attack complexity is low, an attacker needs low-level privileges on the target. No user interaction is required. The scope is unchanged, so the impact stays within the vulnerable component. Rated impact: confidentiality none, integrity none, availability high.

CVSS metrics in full

The score comes from this vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

  • Attack vector: Local — a local account, shell or session on the host is needed.
  • Attack complexity: Low — the attack works reliably, with no preparation.
  • Privileges required: Low — an ordinary user account is enough.
  • User interaction: None — nobody has to be tricked into anything.
  • Scope: Unchanged — the damage stays inside the vulnerable component.
  • Confidentiality impact: None.
  • Integrity impact: None.
  • Availability impact: High — total loss, or loss the attacker controls.

Affected software

CVE-2023-52705 is recorded against 2 packages.

  • kernel (from 5.16.0 up to 6.1.13)
  • linux-kernel

Timeline and source

Published on 21 May 2024 and last revised on 12 August 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. A vendor advisory or fix has been published. Record sourced from NVD.

References

git.kernel.org (Web)
git.kernel.org (Web)
git.kernel.org (Web)
git.kernel.org (Web)
git.kernel.org (Web)
git.kernel.org (Web)
git.kernel.org (Web)
github.com (Advisory)
nvd.nist.gov (Advisory)
git.kernel.org (Package)

Other advisories for this package

kernel has other advisories on record. If you are patching this one, these are worth checking on the same host:

CVE-2023-52705 on other distributions

Each distribution ships its own build and its own fixed version. Pick the one you run:

Details

Severity Medium
CVSS Score 5.5
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CWE N/A
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source NVD
Published 2024-05-21
Updated 2026-08-20
Modified 2026-08-12

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
kernel 5.16.0 6.1.13
linux-kernel — —

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