CVE & CISA-KEV Catalog

CVE-2023-52836

HIGH
7.8
CVSS v3
NVD

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: locking/ww_mutex/test: Fix potential workqueue corruption In some cases running with the test-ww_mutex code, I was seeing odd behavior where sometimes it seemed flush_workqueue was returning before all the work threads were finished. Often this would cause strange crashes as the mutexes would be freed while they were being used. Looking at the code, there is a lifetime problem as the controlling thread that spawns the work allocates the "struct stress" structures that are passed to the workqueue threads. Then when the workqueue threads are finished, they free the stress struct that was passed to them. Unfortunately the workqueue work_struct node is in the stress struct. Which means the work_struct is freed before the work thread returns and while flush_workqueue is waiting. It seems like a better idea to have the controlling thread both allocate and free the stress structures, so that we can be sure we don't corrupt the workqueue by freeing the structure prematurely. So this patch reworks the test to do so, and with this change I no longer see the early flush_workqueue returns.

How to fix

Remediation Available
linuxDebian
Fixed in:5.10.205-1CVE-2023-52836
Fixed in:6.1.64-1CVE-2023-52836
Fixed in:6.6.8-1CVE-2023-52836
Fixed in:6.6.8-1CVE-2023-52836

Remediation is compiled from vendor and distribution security advisories. Always confirm against the linked source for your exact version and platform.

CVSS v3 Vector

Exploitability

Attack VectorLocal
Attack ComplexityLow
Privileges RequiredLow
User InteractionNone
ScopeUnchanged

Impact

ConfidentialityHigh
IntegrityHigh
AvailabilityHigh

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Exploit Intelligence

0.26%probability of exploitation in 30 days
17thpercentile

Low risk: more likely to be exploited than 17% of all known CVEs.

References

Related Vulnerabilities

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CVE-2023-4863High8.8100%KEVFix
CVE-2020-16040Medium6.5100%-Fix
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This product uses NVD data but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. EPSS scores courtesy of FIRST.org (https://www.first.org/epss). Source: CISA KEV Catalog. Data as of 2025-09-23.