🛡️ CVE-2023-54198 — kernel

🟠 CVSS 7.8 — High ✅ No Known Exploit NVD
7.8
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

tty: fix out-of-bounds access in tty_driver_lookup_tty()

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

tty: fix out-of-bounds access in tty_driver_lookup_tty()

When specifying an invalid console= device like console=tty3270,

tty_driver_lookup_tty() returns the tty struct without checking

whether index is a valid number.

To reproduce:

qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -nographic -serial mon:stdio \

-kernel ../linux-build-x86/arch/x86/boot/bzImage \

-append "console=ttyS0 console=tty3270"

This crashes with:

[ 0.770599] BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 00000000000000ef

[ 0.771265] #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode

[ 0.771773] #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page

[ 0.772609] Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP PTI

[ 0.774878] RIP: 0010:tty_open+0x268/0x6f0

[ 0.784013] chrdev_open+0xbd/0x230

[ 0.784444] ? cdev_device_add+0x80/0x80

[ 0.784920] do_dentry_open+0x1e0/0x410

[ 0.785389] path_openat+0xca9/0x1050

[ 0.785813] do_filp_open+0xaa/0x150

[ 0.786240] file_open_name+0x133/0x1b0

[ 0.786746] filp_open+0x27/0x50

[ 0.787244] console_on_rootfs+0x14/0x4d

[ 0.787800] kernel_init_freeable+0x1e4/0x20d

[ 0.788383] ? rest_init+0xc0/0xc0

[ 0.788881] kernel_init+0x11/0x120

[ 0.789356] ret_from_fork+0x22/0x30

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 high, integrity high, availability high.

Affected software

CVE-2023-54198 is recorded against 2 packages.

  • kernel (from 6.2.0 up to 6.2.5)
  • unknown

Timeline and source

Published on 30 December 2025 and last revised on 6 August 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. 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)
git.kernel.org (Web)
github.com (Advisory)
nvd.nist.gov (Advisory)
git.kernel.org (Package)

CVE-2023-54198 on other distributions

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

Details

Severity High
CVSS Score 7.8
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CWE N/A
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source NVD
Published 2025-12-30
Updated 2026-08-12
Modified 2026-08-06
Fix URL N/A

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
kernel 6.2.0 6.2.5
unknown — —

References

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