CVE-2023-54004
NoneCVSS
—
EPSS
0.6%
Published
Dec 24, 2025
CISA due date
—
Cloudanix analysis
A bug in the operating system's handling of a rare network protocol can cause the whole computer to crash when certain network traffic arrives.
- Exploitation
- Local Privilege
- Attacker needs
- Local User
- Complexity
- Low
- Impact
- Denial Of Service
- Component
- OS kernel
- Class
- Memory Corruption
- Remediation
- Upgrade
- Effort
- Medium
- Patch risk
- Low
What it actually does
NULL pointer dereference in __sk_mem_raise_allocated() via sk_get_rmem0() when IPPROTO_UDPLITE sockets are used, due to missing .sysctl_wmem_offset or .sysctl_rmem initialization in udplite_prot and udplitev6_prot.
Why it matters to the business
Systems handling UDPLITE traffic can experience kernel crashes leading to denial of service; low exploitability and no known campaigns reduce immediate operational risk despite the memory corruption class.
How an attack unfolds
An attacker creates an IPv6 UDPLITE socket and triggers memory accounting paths during packet reception or enqueueing, causing the kernel to dereference a null pointer in socket memory functions and crash the system.
How to fix it
Update to a kernel containing the fix that sets .sysctl_wmem_offset for udplite_prot and udplitev6_prot; apply the referenced commit or later stable releases. No specific Nautobot package versions address this kernel-level issue.
How to confirm the fix worked
Confirm kernel version includes the udplite memory accounting fix; test socket creation and traffic with IPPROTO_UDPLITE under memory pressure to ensure no null dereference occurs.
Typical attack path
- Create inet6 socket with IPPROTO_UDPLITE (0x88)
- Send crafted multicast or unicast UDP-lite packets to trigger __udp6_lib_rcv path
- Force memory scheduling via udp_rmem_schedule and __sk_mem_raise_allocated
- Trigger null dereference in sk_get_rmem0 leading to general protection fault
How to detect it
Search kernel logs for general protection faults or KASAN null-ptr-deref reports mentioning sk_get_rmem0 or __sk_mem_raise_allocated during udpv6 processing; inspect audit logs for unusual IPPROTO_UDPLITE socket creation.
- general protection fault.*sk_get_rmem0
- __sk_mem_raise_allocated.*udplite
- socket.*0x88
- udpv6_queue_rcv_one_skb
What your security team should do
- Prioritize kernel updates on any hosts exposing UDPLITE or IPv6 UDP services
- Monitor EPSS and KEV status for changes given the 309 days since publication
- Restrict UDPLITE socket usage via seccomp or LSM policies where possible
- Review downstream dependents for any custom networking stacks
The record
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: udplite: Fix NULL pointer dereference in __sk_mem_raise_allocated(). syzbot reported [0] a null-ptr-deref in sk_get_rmem0() while using IPPROTO_UDPLITE (0x88): 14:25:52 executing program 1: r0 = socket$inet6(0xa, 0x80002, 0x88) We had a similar report [1] for probably sk_memory_allocated_add() in __sk_mem_raise_allocated(), and commit c915fe13cbaa ("udplite: fix NULL pointer dereference") fixed it by setting .memory_allocated for udplite_prot and udplitev6_prot. To fix the variant, we need to set either .sysctl_wmem_offset or .sysctl_rmem. Now UDP and UDPLITE share the same value for .memory_allocated, so we use the same .sysctl_wmem_offset for UDP and UDPLITE. [0]: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000000: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000000-0x0000000000000007] CPU: 0 PID: 6829 Comm: syz-executor.1 Not tainted 6.4.0-rc2-syzkaller #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 04/28/2023 RIP: 0010:sk_get_rmem0 include/net/sock.h:2907 [inline] RIP: 0010:__sk_mem_raise_allocated+0x806/0x17a0 net/core/sock.c:3006 Code: c1 ea 03 80 3c 02 00 0f 85 23 0f 00 00 48 8b 44 24 08 48 8b 98 38 01 00 00 48 b8 00 00 00 00 00 fc ff df 48 89 da 48 c1 ea 03 <0f> b6 14 02 48 89 d8 83 e0 07 83 c0 03 38 d0 0f 8d 6f 0a 00 00 8b RSP: 0018:ffffc90005d7f450 EFLAGS: 00010246 RAX: dffffc0000000000 RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: ffffc90004d92000 RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: ffffffff88066482 RDI: ffffffff8e2ccbb8 RBP: ffff8880173f7000 R08: 0000000000000005 R09: 0000000000000000 R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: 0000000000030000 R13: 0000000000000001 R14: 0000000000000340 R15: 0000000000000001 FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff8880b9800000(0063) knlGS:00000000f7f1cb40 CS: 0010 DS: 002b ES: 002b CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 000000002e82f000 CR3: 0000000034ff0000 CR4: 00000000003506f0 Call Trace: <TASK> __sk_mem_schedule+0x6c/0xe0 net/core/sock.c:3077 udp_rmem_schedule net/ipv4/udp.c:1539 [inline] __udp_enqueue_schedule_skb+0x776/0xb30 net/ipv4/udp.c:1581 __udpv6_queue_rcv_skb net/ipv6/udp.c:666 [inline] udpv6_queue_rcv_one_skb+0xc39/0x16c0 net/ipv6/udp.c:775 udpv6_queue_rcv_skb+0x194/0xa10 net/ipv6/udp.c:793 __udp6_lib_mcast_deliver net/ipv6/udp.c:906 [inline] __udp6_lib_rcv+0x1bda/0x2bd0 net/ipv6/udp.c:1013 ip6_protocol_deliver_rcu+0x2e7/0x1250 net/ipv6/ip6_input.c:437 ip6_input_finish+0x150/0x2f0 net/ipv6/ip6_input.c:482 NF_HOOK include/linux/netfilter.h:303 [inline] NF_HOOK include/linux/netfilter.h:297 [inline] ip6_input+0xa0/0xd0 net/ipv6/ip6_input.c:491 ip6_mc_input+0x40b/0xf50 net/ipv6/ip6_input.c:585 dst_input include/net/dst.h:468 [inline] ip6_rcv_finish net/ipv6/ip6_input.c:79 [inline] NF_HOOK include/linux/netfilter.h:303 [inline] NF_HOOK include/linux/netfilter.h:297 [inline] ipv6_rcv+0x250/0x380 net/ipv6/ip6_input.c:309 __netif_receive_skb_one_core+0x114/0x180 net/core/dev.c:5491 __netif_receive_skb+0x1f/0x1c0 net/core/dev.c:5605 netif_receive_skb_internal net/core/dev.c:5691 [inline] netif_receive_skb+0x133/0x7a0 net/core/dev.c:5750 tun_rx_batched+0x4b3/0x7a0 drivers/net/tun.c:1553 tun_get_user+0x2452/0x39c0 drivers/net/tun.c:1989 tun_chr_write_iter+0xdf/0x200 drivers/net/tun.c:2035 call_write_iter include/linux/fs.h:1868 [inline] new_sync_write fs/read_write.c:491 [inline] vfs_write+0x945/0xd50 fs/read_write.c:584 ksys_write+0x12b/0x250 fs/read_write.c:637 do_syscall_32_irqs_on arch/x86/entry/common.c:112 [inline] __do_fast_syscall_32+0x65/0xf0 arch/x86/entry/common.c:178 do_fast_syscall_32+0x33/0x70 arch/x86/entry/common.c:203 entry_SYSENTER_compat_after_hwframe+0x70/0x82 RIP: 0023:0xf7f21579 Code: b8 01 10 06 03 74 b4 01 10 07 03 74 b0 01 10 08 03 74 d8 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 51 52 55 89 e5 0f 34 cd 80 <5d> 5a 59 c3 90 90 90 90 8d b4 26 00 00 00 00 8d b4 26 00 00 00 00 ---truncated---
Affected packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Introduced | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Linux | Kernel | 4.10.0 | 4.19.284 |
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