CVE & CISA-KEV Catalog

CVE-2023-53172

MEDIUM
5.5
CVSS v3
NVD

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: fsverity: reject FS_IOC_ENABLE_VERITY on mode 3 fds Commit 56124d6c87fd ("fsverity: support enabling with tree block size < PAGE_SIZE") changed FS_IOC_ENABLE_VERITY to use __kernel_read() to read the file's data, instead of direct pagecache accesses. An unintended consequence of this is that the 'WARN_ON_ONCE(!(file->f_mode & FMODE_READ))' in __kernel_read() became reachable by fuzz tests. This happens if FS_IOC_ENABLE_VERITY is called on a fd opened with access mode 3, which means "ioctl access only". Arguably, FS_IOC_ENABLE_VERITY should work on ioctl-only fds. But ioctl-only fds are a weird Linux extension that is rarely used and that few people even know about. (The documentation for FS_IOC_ENABLE_VERITY even specifically says it requires O_RDONLY.) It's probably not worthwhile to make the ioctl internally open a new fd just to handle this case. Thus, just reject the ioctl on such fds for now.

How to fix

Remediation Available
linuxDebian
Fixed in:6.3.7-1CVE-2023-53172
Fixed in:6.3.7-1CVE-2023-53172

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

ConfidentialityNone
IntegrityNone
AvailabilityHigh

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

Exploit Intelligence

0.13%probability of exploitation in 30 days
3rdpercentile

Low risk: more likely to be exploited than 3% of all known CVEs.

References

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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 2025-12-02.