CVE-2023-53245
MEDIUMDescription
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: scsi: storvsc: Fix handling of virtual Fibre Channel timeouts Hyper-V provides the ability to connect Fibre Channel LUNs to the host system and present them in a guest VM as a SCSI device. I/O to the vFC device is handled by the storvsc driver. The storvsc driver includes a partial integration with the FC transport implemented in the generic portion of the Linux SCSI subsystem so that FC attributes can be displayed in /sys. However, the partial integration means that some aspects of vFC don't work properly. Unfortunately, a full and correct integration isn't practical because of limitations in what Hyper-V provides to the guest. In particular, in the context of Hyper-V storvsc, the FC transport timeout function fc_eh_timed_out() causes a kernel panic because it can't find the rport and dereferences a NULL pointer. The original patch that added the call from storvsc_eh_timed_out() to fc_eh_timed_out() is faulty in this regard. In many cases a timeout is due to a transient condition, so the situation can be improved by just continuing to wait like with other I/O requests issued by storvsc, and avoiding the guaranteed panic. For a permanent failure, continuing to wait may result in a hung thread instead of a panic, which again may be better. So fix the panic by removing the storvsc call to fc_eh_timed_out(). This allows storvsc to keep waiting for a response. The change has been tested by users who experienced a panic in fc_eh_timed_out() due to transient timeouts, and it solves their problem. In the future we may want to deprecate the vFC functionality in storvsc since it can't be fully fixed. But it has current users for whom it is working well enough, so it should probably stay for a while longer.
How to fix
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
Impact
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Exploit Intelligence
Low risk: more likely to be exploited than 3% of all known CVEs.
References
Related Vulnerabilities
Other CWE-476 (NULL Pointer Dereference) vulnerabilities, ordered by exploit likelihood. View all
| CVE | Severity | CVSS | EPSS | Exploited | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2023-21758 | High | 7.5 | 92% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2023-21547 | High | 7.5 | 88% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2014-3470 | Medium | 4.3 | 86% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2021-44224 | High | 8.2 | 82% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2016-0742 | High | 7.5 | 82% | - | Fix |
| CVE-2009-1386 | Medium | 5.0 | 80% | - | Fix |
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Start freeThis 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 2026-01-14.