CVE-2023-54251
NoneCVSS
—
EPSS
0.2%
Published
Dec 30, 2025
CISA due date
—
Cloudanix analysis
A Linux kernel bug in network traffic timing can make the system crash when it receives certain oversized timing values.
- Exploitation
- Local Privilege
- Attacker needs
- Low Privilege
- Complexity
- Low
- Impact
- Denial Of Service
- Component
- OS kernel
- Class
- Improper Input Validation
- Remediation
- Patch
- Effort
- Medium
- Patch risk
- Low
What it actually does
Integer overflow in parsing TCA_TAPRIO_ATTR_SCHED_CYCLE_TIME allows a value such as 0x100000000 to be cast to s32 resulting in zero, which becomes the divisor in div_s64_rem inside get_cycle_time_elapsed and triggers a divide-by-zero error during taprio enqueue or transmission.
Why it matters to the business
Kernel crashes or denial of service on systems using the taprio qdisc can interrupt network traffic scheduling and affect availability of services relying on time-aware packet transmission.
How an attack unfolds
An attacker sends a crafted netlink message setting TCA_TAPRIO_ATTR_SCHED_CYCLE_TIME to 0x100000000; the value is cast to s32 becoming zero; when a packet is enqueued the scheduler calls get_cycle_time_elapsed which performs division by the zeroed cycle_time value, causing a kernel divide error.
How to fix it
Upgrade Linux kernel to a version containing commit f04f6d9b3b060f7e11219a65a76da65f1489e391 or later equivalent that limits cycle_time to INT_MAX, adds overflow checks in setup_txtime, and strengthens parse_taprio_schedule validation.
How to confirm the fix worked
Confirm presence of the fix commit in the running kernel; attempt to reproduce the original syzkaller reproducer and verify no divide error occurs; inspect parse_taprio_schedule for the new cycle_time overflow test.
Typical attack path
- Craft and send netlink message configuring taprio qdisc with TCA_TAPRIO_ATTR_SCHED_CYCLE_TIME set to 0x100000000
- Trigger packet enqueue or transmission on the affected qdisc
- Kernel executes find_entry_to_transmit which calls get_cycle_time_elapsed and divides by zero
How to detect it
Search kernel logs for divide error messages referencing div_s64_rem, get_cycle_time_elapsed or find_entry_to_transmit; inspect audit or netlink traces for taprio schedule configurations containing the attribute TCA_TAPRIO_ATTR_SCHED_CYCLE_TIME with large values.
- divide error: 0000 [#1]
- get_cycle_time_elapsed net/sched/sch_taprio.c
- find_entry_to_transmit+0x252/0x7e0
- TCA_TAPRIO_ATTR_SCHED_CYCLE_TIME
What your security team should do
- Apply the referenced kernel fix immediately on all systems using taprio
- Restrict unprivileged users from creating or modifying qdisc configurations via netlink
- Monitor kernel logs for divide error oops mentioning sch_taprio
The record
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/sched: taprio: Limit TCA_TAPRIO_ATTR_SCHED_CYCLE_TIME to INT_MAX. syzkaller found zero division error [0] in div_s64_rem() called from get_cycle_time_elapsed(), where sched->cycle_time is the divisor. We have tests in parse_taprio_schedule() so that cycle_time will never be 0, and actually cycle_time is not 0 in get_cycle_time_elapsed(). The problem is that the types of divisor are different; cycle_time is s64, but the argument of div_s64_rem() is s32. syzkaller fed this input and 0x100000000 is cast to s32 to be 0. @TCA_TAPRIO_ATTR_SCHED_CYCLE_TIME={0xc, 0x8, 0x100000000} We use s64 for cycle_time to cast it to ktime_t, so let's keep it and set max for cycle_time. While at it, we prevent overflow in setup_txtime() and add another test in parse_taprio_schedule() to check if cycle_time overflows. Also, we add a new tdc test case for this issue. [0]: divide error: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN NOPTI CPU: 1 PID: 103 Comm: kworker/1:3 Not tainted 6.5.0-rc1-00330-g60cc1f7d0605 #3 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.16.0-0-gd239552ce722-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 Workqueue: ipv6_addrconf addrconf_dad_work RIP: 0010:div_s64_rem include/linux/math64.h:42 [inline] RIP: 0010:get_cycle_time_elapsed net/sched/sch_taprio.c:223 [inline] RIP: 0010:find_entry_to_transmit+0x252/0x7e0 net/sched/sch_taprio.c:344 Code: 3c 02 00 0f 85 5e 05 00 00 48 8b 4c 24 08 4d 8b bd 40 01 00 00 48 8b 7c 24 48 48 89 c8 4c 29 f8 48 63 f7 48 99 48 89 74 24 70 <48> f7 fe 48 29 d1 48 8d 04 0f 49 89 cc 48 89 44 24 20 49 8d 85 10 RSP: 0018:ffffc90000acf260 EFLAGS: 00010206 RAX: 177450e0347560cf RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: 177450e0347560cf RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: 0000000100000000 RBP: 0000000000000056 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: ffffed10020a0934 R10: ffff8880105049a7 R11: ffff88806cf3a520 R12: ffff888010504800 R13: ffff88800c00d800 R14: ffff8880105049a0 R15: 0000000000000000 FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff88806cf00000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 00007f0edf84f0e8 CR3: 000000000d73c002 CR4: 0000000000770ee0 PKRU: 55555554 Call Trace: <TASK> get_packet_txtime net/sched/sch_taprio.c:508 [inline] taprio_enqueue_one+0x900/0xff0 net/sched/sch_taprio.c:577 taprio_enqueue+0x378/0xae0 net/sched/sch_taprio.c:658 dev_qdisc_enqueue+0x46/0x170 net/core/dev.c:3732 __dev_xmit_skb net/core/dev.c:3821 [inline] __dev_queue_xmit+0x1b2f/0x3000 net/core/dev.c:4169 dev_queue_xmit include/linux/netdevice.h:3088 [inline] neigh_resolve_output net/core/neighbour.c:1552 [inline] neigh_resolve_output+0x4a7/0x780 net/core/neighbour.c:1532 neigh_output include/net/neighbour.h:544 [inline] ip6_finish_output2+0x924/0x17d0 net/ipv6/ip6_output.c:135 __ip6_finish_output+0x620/0xaa0 net/ipv6/ip6_output.c:196 ip6_finish_output net/ipv6/ip6_output.c:207 [inline] NF_HOOK_COND include/linux/netfilter.h:292 [inline] ip6_output+0x206/0x410 net/ipv6/ip6_output.c:228 dst_output include/net/dst.h:458 [inline] NF_HOOK.constprop.0+0xea/0x260 include/linux/netfilter.h:303 ndisc_send_skb+0x872/0xe80 net/ipv6/ndisc.c:508 ndisc_send_ns+0xb5/0x130 net/ipv6/ndisc.c:666 addrconf_dad_work+0xc14/0x13f0 net/ipv6/addrconf.c:4175 process_one_work+0x92c/0x13a0 kernel/workqueue.c:2597 worker_thread+0x60f/0x1240 kernel/workqueue.c:2748 kthread+0x2fe/0x3f0 kernel/kthread.c:389 ret_from_fork+0x2c/0x50 arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:308 </TASK> Modules linked in:
Affected packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Introduced | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Linux | Kernel | 5.3.0 | 5.15.126 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP6 | kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP6_Update_19 | 0 | 1-150600.13.3.1 |
| 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 SP6-LTSS | kernel-64kb | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | kernel-default-base | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1.150600.12.38.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | kernel-docs | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | kernel-source | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | kernel-syms | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | kernel-zfcpdump | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP6 | kernel-default-base | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1.150600.12.38.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP6 | kernel-docs | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP6 | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP6 | kernel-source | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP6 | kernel-syms | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | dtb-aarch64 | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-64kb | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-debug | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-default | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-default-base | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1.150600.12.38.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-docs | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-kvmsmall | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-obs-qa | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-source | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-syms | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
| openSUSE:Leap 15.6 | kernel-zfcpdump | 0 | 6.4.0-150600.23.84.1 |
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