CVE-2023-53172

MEDIUM EPSS 2.8%
Published Sep 15, 20259mo ago · Modified Jun 17, 20261w ago
5.5 CVSS 3.1
Medium
Find Similar
Published Sep 15, 2025 9mo ago
Last Modified Jun 17, 2026 1w ago

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: fsverity: reject FS_IOC_ENABLE_VERITY on mode 3 fds Commit 56124d6c87fd ("fsverity: support enabling with tree block size < PAGE_SIZE") changed FS_IOC_ENABLE_VERITY to use __kernel_read() to read the file's data, instead of direct pagecache accesses. An unintended consequence of this is that the 'WARN_ON_ONCE(!(file->f_mode & FMODE_READ))' in __kernel_read() became reachable by fuzz tests. This happens if FS_IOC_ENABLE_VERITY is called on a fd opened with access mode 3, which means "ioctl access only". Arguably, FS_IOC_ENABLE_VERITY should work on ioctl-only fds. But ioctl-only fds are a weird Linux extension that is rarely used and that few people even know about. (The documentation for FS_IOC_ENABLE_VERITY even specifically says it requires O_RDONLY.) It's probably not worthwhile to make the ioctl internally open a new fd just to handle this case. Thus, just reject the ioctl on such fds for now.

CVSS Details

Base Score
5.5
Exploitability
1.8
Impact
3.6
Vector string
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack Vector Local
Attack Complexity Low
Privileges Required Low
User Interaction None
Scope Unchanged
Confidentiality None
Integrity None
Availability High

Threat Intelligence

EPSS Exploit Probability
2.8% percentile
Exploit & Patch Status
No Known Exploit
Patch Available

Affected Products 1

VendorProductVersionRange
linuxlinux_kernel6.3any

References 2

  • git.kernel.org https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/04839139213cf60d4c5fc792214a08830e294ff8
    Patch
  • git.kernel.org https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/85c039cff3c359967cafe90443c02321e950b216
    Patch

Remediation

  • git.kernel.org https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/04839139213cf60d4c5fc792214a08830e294ff8
    Patch
  • git.kernel.org https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/85c039cff3c359967cafe90443c02321e950b216
    Patch