CVE-2023-54258
NoneCVSS
—
EPSS
0.6%
Published
Dec 30, 2025
CISA due date
—
Cloudanix analysis
A bug in Linux file-sharing code can cause the computer to crash when certain network file operations overlap with disconnecting a shared folder.
- Exploitation
- Local Privilege
- Attacker needs
- Local User
- Complexity
- Moderate
- Impact
- Denial Of Service
- Component
- OS kernel
- Class
- Race Condition
- Remediation
- Upgrade
- Effort
- Medium
- Patch risk
- Low
What it actually does
Race condition in cifs_oplock_break allows an unmount (kill_sb) to invalidate tcon->ses between validity checks and oplock_response, leading to a null pointer dereference or invalid memory access that triggers a kernel oops.
Why it matters to the business
Unexpected kernel crashes on systems using CIFS/SMB mounts with deferred close enabled can cause service outages, loss of in-flight I/O, and require reboots, increasing operational overhead especially on high-volume file servers.
How an attack unfolds
An attacker with local access or the ability to trigger CIFS lease breaks and concurrent unmounts can race the oplock handling path so that the session pointer is dereferenced after the mount is torn down, causing a panic; no remote unauthenticated path is described.
How to fix it
Upgrade the Linux kernel to a version containing commit b99f490ea87ebcca3a429fd8837067feb56a4c7c or later; rebuild and reboot affected systems; disable deferred close (echo 0 > /sys/module/cifs/parameters/deferred_close) as a temporary mitigation if immediate patching is not possible.
How to confirm the fix worked
Confirm the running kernel contains the fix commit or is newer than the vulnerable version; reproduce the oplock break + unmount race in a test environment and verify no oops occurs; monitor dmesg for the previous cifs_oplock_break RIP pattern.
Typical attack path
- Establish CIFS mount with deferred close enabled
- Trigger concurrent lease/oplock break events
- Initiate unmount or session teardown while break handling is in progress
- Trigger the reordered check path that dereferences an already-freed tcon->ses
How to detect it
Search kernel logs for the cifs_oplock_break oops signature and the RIP address shown in the advisory; correlate with CIFS unmount events and lease-break activity in audit or system logs.
What your security team should do
- Prioritize kernel updates on all systems exposing CIFS mounts
- Audit for use of deferred close and consider disabling until patched
- Add the fix commit ID to patch-management tracking
- Monitor upstream stable trees for backports to distribution kernels
The record
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: cifs: fix potential oops in cifs_oplock_break With deferred close we can have closes that race with lease breaks, and so with the current checks for whether to send the lease response, oplock_response(), this can mean that an unmount (kill_sb) can occur just before we were checking if the tcon->ses is valid. See below: [Fri Aug 4 04:12:50 2023] RIP: 0010:cifs_oplock_break+0x1f7/0x5b0 [cifs] [Fri Aug 4 04:12:50 2023] Code: 7d a8 48 8b 7d c0 c0 e9 02 48 89 45 b8 41 89 cf e8 3e f5 ff ff 4c 89 f7 41 83 e7 01 e8 82 b3 03 f2 49 8b 45 50 48 85 c0 74 5e <48> 83 78 60 00 74 57 45 84 ff 75 52 48 8b 43 98 48 83 eb 68 48 39 [Fri Aug 4 04:12:50 2023] RSP: 0018:ffffb30607ddbdf8 EFLAGS: 00010206 [Fri Aug 4 04:12:50 2023] RAX: 632d223d32612022 RBX: ffff97136944b1e0 RCX: 0000000080100009 [Fri Aug 4 04:12:50 2023] RDX: 0000000000000001 RSI: 0000000080100009 RDI: ffff97136944b188 [Fri Aug 4 04:12:50 2023] RBP: ffffb30607ddbe58 R08: 0000000000000001 R09: ffffffffc08e0900 [Fri Aug 4 04:12:50 2023] R10: 0000000000000001 R11: 000000000000000f R12: ffff97136944b138 [Fri Aug 4 04:12:50 2023] R13: ffff97149147c000 R14: ffff97136944b188 R15: 0000000000000000 [Fri Aug 4 04:12:50 2023] FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff9714f7c00000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [Fri Aug 4 04:12:50 2023] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [Fri Aug 4 04:12:50 2023] CR2: 00007fd8de9c7590 CR3: 000000011228e000 CR4: 0000000000350ef0 [Fri Aug 4 04:12:50 2023] Call Trace: [Fri Aug 4 04:12:50 2023] <TASK> [Fri Aug 4 04:12:50 2023] process_one_work+0x225/0x3d0 [Fri Aug 4 04:12:50 2023] worker_thread+0x4d/0x3e0 [Fri Aug 4 04:12:50 2023] ? process_one_work+0x3d0/0x3d0 [Fri Aug 4 04:12:50 2023] kthread+0x12a/0x150 [Fri Aug 4 04:12:50 2023] ? set_kthread_struct+0x50/0x50 [Fri Aug 4 04:12:50 2023] ret_from_fork+0x22/0x30 [Fri Aug 4 04:12:50 2023] </TASK> To fix this change the ordering of the checks before sending the oplock_response to first check if the openFileList is empty.
Affected packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Introduced | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Linux | Kernel | 5.15.121 | 5.15.128 |
| 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 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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