Linux Kernel up to 6.5.12/6.6.2 riscv stack-based overflow

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability categorized as critical has been discovered in Linux Kernel up to 6.5.12/6.6.2. This affects an unknown function of the component riscv. Executing a manipulation can lead to stack-based overflow. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2023-52761. There is no exploit available. It is advisable to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability has been found in Linux Kernel up to 6.5.12/6.6.2 and classified as critical. This vulnerability affects an unknown functionality of the component riscv. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a stack-based overflow vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-121. A stack-based buffer overflow condition is a condition where the buffer being overwritten is allocated on the stack (i.e., is a local variable or, rarely, a parameter to a function). As an impact it is known to affect confidentiality, integrity, and availability. CVE summarizes:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: riscv: VMAP_STACK overflow detection thread-safe commit 31da94c25aea ("riscv: add VMAP_STACK overflow detection") added support for CONFIG_VMAP_STACK. If overflow is detected, CPU switches to `shadow_stack` temporarily before switching finally to per-cpu `overflow_stack`. If two CPUs/harts are racing and end up in over flowing kernel stack, one or both will end up corrupting each other state because `shadow_stack` is not per-cpu. This patch optimizes per-cpu overflow stack switch by directly picking per-cpu `overflow_stack` and gets rid of `shadow_stack`. Following are the changes in this patch - Defines an asm macro to obtain per-cpu symbols in destination register. - In entry.S, when overflow is detected, per-cpu overflow stack is located using per-cpu asm macro. Computing per-cpu symbol requires a temporary register. x31 is saved away into CSR_SCRATCH (CSR_SCRATCH is anyways zero since we're in kernel). Please see Links for additional relevant disccussion and alternative solution. Tested by `echo EXHAUST_STACK > /sys/kernel/debug/provoke-crash/DIRECT` Kernel crash log below Insufficient stack space to handle exception!/debug/provoke-crash/DIRECT Task stack: [0xff20000010a98000..0xff20000010a9c000] Overflow stack: [0xff600001f7d98370..0xff600001f7d99370] CPU: 1 PID: 205 Comm: bash Not tainted 6.1.0-rc2-00001-g328a1f96f7b9 #34 Hardware name: riscv-virtio,qemu (DT) epc : __memset+0x60/0xfc ra : recursive_loop+0x48/0xc6 [lkdtm] epc : ffffffff808de0e4 ra : ffffffff0163a752 sp : ff20000010a97e80 gp : ffffffff815c0330 tp : ff600000820ea280 t0 : ff20000010a97e88 t1 : 000000000000002e t2 : 3233206874706564 s0 : ff20000010a982b0 s1 : 0000000000000012 a0 : ff20000010a97e88 a1 : 0000000000000000 a2 : 0000000000000400 a3 : ff20000010a98288 a4 : 0000000000000000 a5 : 0000000000000000 a6 : fffffffffffe43f0 a7 : 00007fffffffffff s2 : ff20000010a97e88 s3 : ffffffff01644680 s4 : ff20000010a9be90 s5 : ff600000842ba6c0 s6 : 00aaaaaac29e42b0 s7 : 00fffffff0aa3684 s8 : 00aaaaaac2978040 s9 : 0000000000000065 s10: 00ffffff8a7cad10 s11: 00ffffff8a76a4e0 t3 : ffffffff815dbaf4 t4 : ffffffff815dbaf4 t5 : ffffffff815dbab8 t6 : ff20000010a9bb48 status: 0000000200000120 badaddr: ff20000010a97e88 cause: 000000000000000f Kernel panic - not syncing: Kernel stack overflow CPU: 1 PID: 205 Comm: bash Not tainted 6.1.0-rc2-00001-g328a1f96f7b9 #34 Hardware name: riscv-virtio,qemu (DT) Call Trace: [] dump_backtrace+0x30/0x38 [] show_stack+0x40/0x4c [] dump_stack_lvl+0x44/0x5c [] dump_stack+0x18/0x20 [] panic+0x126/0x2fe [] walk_stackframe+0x0/0xf0 [] recursive_loop+0x48/0xc6 [lkdtm] SMP: stopping secondary CPUs ---[ end Kernel panic - not syncing: Kernel stack overflow ]---

The advisory is shared for download at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability was named CVE-2023-52761. The exploitation appears to be easy. There are neither technical details nor an exploit publicly available. The current price for an exploit might be approx. USD $0-$5k (estimation calculated on 09/23/2025).

Upgrading to version 6.5.13 or 6.6.3 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 1493baaf09e3/eff53aea3855/be97d0db5f44 is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at git.kernel.org. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

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Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 6.5.0
• 6.5.1
• 6.5.2
• 6.5.3
• 6.5.4
• 6.5.5
• 6.5.6
• 6.5.7
• 6.5.8
• 6.5.9
• 6.5.10
• 6.5.11
• 6.5.12
• 6.6.0
• 6.6.1
• 6.6.2

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

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CPE 2.2info

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Entryinfo

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