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🛡️ CVE-2023-53070 — kernel

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

Description

ACPI: PPTT: Fix to avoid sleep in the atomic context when PPTT is absent

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

ACPI: PPTT: Fix to avoid sleep in the atomic context when PPTT is absent

Commit 0c80f9e165f8 ("ACPI: PPTT: Leave the table mapped for the runtime usage")

enabled to map PPTT once on the first invocation of acpi_get_pptt() and

never unmapped the same allowing it to be used at runtime with out the

hassle of mapping and unmapping the table. This was needed to fetch LLC

information from the PPTT in the cpuhotplug path which is executed in

the atomic context as the acpi_get_table() might sleep waiting for a

mutex.

However it missed to handle the case when there is no PPTT on the system

which results in acpi_get_pptt() being called from all the secondary

CPUs attempting to fetch the LLC information in the atomic context

without knowing the absence of PPTT resulting in the splat like below:

| BUG: sleeping function called from invalid context at kernel/locking/semaphore.c:164

| in_atomic(): 1, irqs_disabled(): 1, non_block: 0, pid: 0, name: swapper/1

| preempt_count: 1, expected: 0

| RCU nest depth: 0, expected: 0

| no locks held by swapper/1/0.

| irq event stamp: 0

| hardirqs last enabled at (0): 0x0

| hardirqs last disabled at (0): copy_process+0x61c/0x1b40

| softirqs last enabled at (0): copy_process+0x61c/0x1b40

| softirqs last disabled at (0): 0x0

| CPU: 1 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/1 Not tainted 6.3.0-rc1 #1

| Call trace:

| dump_backtrace+0xac/0x138

| show_stack+0x30/0x48

| dump_stack_lvl+0x60/0xb0

| dump_stack+0x18/0x28

| __might_resched+0x160/0x270

| __might_sleep+0x58/0xb0

| down_timeout+0x34/0x98

| acpi_os_wait_semaphore+0x7c/0xc0

| acpi_ut_acquire_mutex+0x58/0x108

| acpi_get_table+0x40/0xe8

| acpi_get_pptt+0x48/0xa0

| acpi_get_cache_info+0x38/0x140

| init_cache_level+0xf4/0x118

| detect_cache_attributes+0x2e4/0x640

| update_siblings_masks+0x3c/0x330

| store_cpu_topology+0x88/0xf0

| secondary_start_kernel+0xd0/0x168

| __secondary_switched+0xb8/0xc0

Update acpi_get_pptt() to consider the fact that PPTT is once checked and

is not available on the system and return NULL avoiding any attempts to

fetch PPTT and thereby avoiding any possible sleep waiting for a mutex

in the atomic context.

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-2023-53070 is recorded against 2 packages.

  • kernel (from 6.2.0 up to 6.2.8)
  • linux-kernel

Timeline and source

Published on 2 May 2025 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)
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-2023-53070 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 2025-05-02
Updated 2026-08-20
Modified 2026-08-12

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
kernel 6.2.0 6.2.8
linux-kernel — —

Similar Threats

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