CVE-2023-54007
NoneCVSS
—
EPSS
0.2%
Published
Dec 24, 2025
CISA due date
—
Cloudanix analysis
A timing flaw in the Linux kernel handling of certain virtual device operations can cause the system to crash unexpectedly.
- Exploitation
- Local Privilege
- Attacker needs
- Local User
- Complexity
- Moderate
- Impact
- Denial Of Service
- Component
- OS kernel
- Class
- Race Condition
- Remediation
- Patch
- Effort
- Medium
- Patch risk
- Low
What it actually does
Race condition in vmci_host_poll allows reading an uninitialized context pointer before type check completes, resulting in null pointer dereference and general protection fault during poll operations on the vmci_host device.
Why it matters to the business
Systems relying on VMware VMCI communication can experience unexpected kernel crashes or service interruptions, increasing downtime risk in virtualized environments; the large number of downstream kernel dependents amplifies exposure across Linux distributions.
How an attack unfolds
An attacker with local access triggers concurrent calls to vmci_host_do_init_context and vmci_host_poll on the same device, exploiting the non-atomic read of context and type fields to dereference an invalid pointer and crash the kernel.
How to fix it
Update affected Linux kernels to commit 2053e93ac15519ed1f1fe6eba79a33a4963be4a3 or later; for Chainguard packages upgrade cloud-provider-aws-fips-1.29 and related components to 1.29.8-r8 or newer.
How to confirm the fix worked
Verify kernel source contains the reordered read of context after ct_type check; confirm package versions match the listed fixed releases and test poll operations under concurrent initialization workloads.
Typical attack path
- Open or access the vmci_host device from one thread
- Trigger context initialization in a second concurrent thread
- Execute poll syscall in the first thread to read stale uninitialized context
- Cause kernel to dereference invalid pointer leading to GPF
How to detect it
Review kernel logs for general protection faults referencing vmci_host_poll or lock_acquire in drivers/misc/vmw_vmci; look for crash dumps showing null dereference at vmci_host_dev context access.
What your security team should do
- Prioritize kernel upgrades on any systems exposing vmci_host interfaces
- Monitor for kernel oops or GPF logs related to vmci_host_poll
- Restrict local access to VMCI devices where possible until patched
The record
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: vmci_host: fix a race condition in vmci_host_poll() causing GPF During fuzzing, a general protection fault is observed in vmci_host_poll(). general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000019: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x00000000000000c8-0x00000000000000cf] RIP: 0010:__lock_acquire+0xf3/0x5e00 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:4926 <- omitting registers -> Call Trace: <TASK> lock_acquire+0x1a4/0x4a0 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:5672 __raw_spin_lock_irqsave include/linux/spinlock_api_smp.h:110 [inline] _raw_spin_lock_irqsave+0xb3/0x100 kernel/locking/spinlock.c:162 add_wait_queue+0x3d/0x260 kernel/sched/wait.c:22 poll_wait include/linux/poll.h:49 [inline] vmci_host_poll+0xf8/0x2b0 drivers/misc/vmw_vmci/vmci_host.c:174 vfs_poll include/linux/poll.h:88 [inline] do_pollfd fs/select.c:873 [inline] do_poll fs/select.c:921 [inline] do_sys_poll+0xc7c/0x1aa0 fs/select.c:1015 __do_sys_ppoll fs/select.c:1121 [inline] __se_sys_ppoll+0x2cc/0x330 fs/select.c:1101 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:51 [inline] do_syscall_64+0x4e/0xa0 arch/x86/entry/common.c:82 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x46/0xb0 Example thread interleaving that causes the general protection fault is as follows: CPU1 (vmci_host_poll) CPU2 (vmci_host_do_init_context) ----- ----- // Read uninitialized context context = vmci_host_dev->context; // Initialize context vmci_host_dev->context = vmci_ctx_create(); vmci_host_dev->ct_type = VMCIOBJ_CONTEXT; if (vmci_host_dev->ct_type == VMCIOBJ_CONTEXT) { // Dereferencing the wrong pointer poll_wait(..., &context->host_context); } In this scenario, vmci_host_poll() reads vmci_host_dev->context first, and then reads vmci_host_dev->ct_type to check that vmci_host_dev->context is initialized. However, since these two reads are not atomically executed, there is a chance of a race condition as described above. To fix this race condition, read vmci_host_dev->context after checking the value of vmci_host_dev->ct_type so that vmci_host_poll() always reads an initialized context.
Affected packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Introduced | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Linux | Kernel | 3.9.0 | 4.19.283 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP4 | kernel-default | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-ESPOS | kernel-64kb | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-ESPOS | kernel-default | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-ESPOS | kernel-default-base | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1.150400.24.98.3 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-ESPOS | kernel-docs | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-ESPOS | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-ESPOS | kernel-source | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-ESPOS | kernel-syms | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS | kernel-64kb | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS | kernel-default | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS | kernel-default-base | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1.150400.24.98.3 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS | kernel-docs | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS | kernel-source | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS | kernel-syms | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP4 | kernel-default | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP4 | kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP4_Update_48 | 0 | 1-150400.9.7.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Micro 5.3 | kernel-default | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Micro 5.3 | kernel-default-base | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1.150400.24.98.3 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Micro 5.3 | kernel-rt | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.15.142.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Micro 5.3 | kernel-source-rt | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.15.142.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Micro 5.4 | kernel-default | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Micro 5.4 | kernel-default-base | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1.150400.24.98.3 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Micro 5.4 | kernel-rt | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.15.142.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Micro 5.4 | kernel-source-rt | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.15.142.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Micro 5.5 | kernel-rt | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.13.118.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Micro 5.5 | kernel-source-rt | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.13.118.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4-LTSS | kernel-64kb | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4-LTSS | kernel-default | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4-LTSS | kernel-default-base | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1.150400.24.98.3 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4-LTSS | kernel-docs | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4-LTSS | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4-LTSS | kernel-source | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4-LTSS | kernel-syms | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4-LTSS | kernel-zfcpdump | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP4 | kernel-default | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP4 | kernel-default-base | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1.150400.24.98.3 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP4 | kernel-docs | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP4 | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP4 | kernel-source | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP4 | kernel-syms | 0 | 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 |
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