Linux Kernel up to 6.4.15/6.5.2 lib/group_cpus.c create_affinity_masks privilege escalation

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.4.15/6.5.2. It has been rated as critical. This impacts the function create_affinity_masks in the library lib/group_cpus.c. This manipulation causes an unknown weakness. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2023-54008. There is no exploit available. Upgrading the affected component is advised.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.4.15/6.5.2. Affected by this vulnerability is the function create_affinity_masks in the library lib/group_cpus.c. The impact remains unknown. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: virtio_vdpa: build affinity masks conditionally We try to build affinity mask via create_affinity_masks() unconditionally which may lead several issues: - the affinity mask is not used for parent without affinity support (only VDUSE support the affinity now) - the logic of create_affinity_masks() might not work for devices other than block. For example it's not rare in the networking device where the number of queues could exceed the number of CPUs. Such case breaks the current affinity logic which is based on group_cpus_evenly() who assumes the number of CPUs are not less than the number of groups. This can trigger a warning[1]: if (ret >= 0) WARN_ON(nr_present + nr_others < numgrps); Fixing this by only build the affinity masks only when - Driver passes affinity descriptor, driver like virtio-blk can make sure to limit the number of queues when it exceeds the number of CPUs - Parent support affinity setting config ops This help to avoid the warning. More optimizations could be done on top. [1] [ 682.146655] WARNING: CPU: 6 PID: 1550 at lib/group_cpus.c:400 group_cpus_evenly+0x1aa/0x1c0 [ 682.146668] CPU: 6 PID: 1550 Comm: vdpa Not tainted 6.5.0-rc5jason+ #79 [ 682.146671] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.16.2-0-gea1b7a073390-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 [ 682.146673] RIP: 0010:group_cpus_evenly+0x1aa/0x1c0 [ 682.146676] Code: 4c 89 e0 5b 5d 41 5c 41 5d 41 5e c3 cc cc cc cc e8 1b c4 74 ff 48 89 ef e8 13 ac 98 ff 4c 89 e7 45 31 e4 e8 08 ac 98 ff eb c2 <0f> 0b eb b6 e8 fd 05 c3 00 45 31 e4 eb e5 cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc [ 682.146679] RSP: 0018:ffffc9000215f498 EFLAGS: 00010293 [ 682.146682] RAX: 000000000001f1e0 RBX: 0000000000000041 RCX: 0000000000000000 [ 682.146684] RDX: ffff888109922058 RSI: 0000000000000041 RDI: 0000000000000030 [ 682.146686] RBP: ffff888109922058 R08: ffffc9000215f498 R09: ffffc9000215f4a0 [ 682.146687] R10: 00000000000198d0 R11: 0000000000000030 R12: ffff888107e02800 [ 682.146689] R13: 0000000000000030 R14: 0000000000000030 R15: 0000000000000041 [ 682.146692] FS: 00007fef52315740(0000) GS:ffff888237380000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [ 682.146695] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [ 682.146696] CR2: 00007fef52509000 CR3: 0000000110dbc004 CR4: 0000000000370ee0 [ 682.146698] DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 [ 682.146700] DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 [ 682.146701] Call Trace: [ 682.146703] <TASK> [ 682.146705] ? __warn+0x7b/0x130 [ 682.146709] ? group_cpus_evenly+0x1aa/0x1c0 [ 682.146712] ? report_bug+0x1c8/0x1e0 [ 682.146717] ? handle_bug+0x3c/0x70 [ 682.146721] ? exc_invalid_op+0x14/0x70 [ 682.146723] ? asm_exc_invalid_op+0x16/0x20 [ 682.146727] ? group_cpus_evenly+0x1aa/0x1c0 [ 682.146729] ? group_cpus_evenly+0x15c/0x1c0 [ 682.146731] create_affinity_masks+0xaf/0x1a0 [ 682.146735] virtio_vdpa_find_vqs+0x83/0x1d0 [ 682.146738] ? __pfx_default_calc_sets+0x10/0x10 [ 682.146742] virtnet_find_vqs+0x1f0/0x370 [ 682.146747] virtnet_probe+0x501/0xcd0 [ 682.146749] ? vp_modern_get_status+0x12/0x20 [ 682.146751] ? get_cap_addr.isra.0+0x10/0xc0 [ 682.146754] virtio_dev_probe+0x1af/0x260 [ 682.146759] really_probe+0x1a5/0x410

The advisory is shared at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2023-54008 since 12/24/2025. The exploitation appears to be difficult. Technical details are known, but no exploit is available. The price for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 01/30/2026).

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 279970 (Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2023-54008), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 6.4.16 or 6.5.3 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 5f2592243ccd5bb5341f59be409ccfdd586841f3/628b53fc66ca1910a3cb53c3c7e44e59750c3668/ae15aceaa98ad9499763923f7890e345d9f46b60 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.

The vulnerability is also documented in the databases at Tenable (279970) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-2920). If you want to get the best quality for vulnerability data then you always have to consider VulDB.

Affected

• Debian Linux
• SUSE Linux
• SUSE openSUSE
• Open Source Linux Kernel

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 6.4.0
• 6.4.1
• 6.4.2
• 6.4.3
• 6.4.4
• 6.4.5
• 6.4.6
• 6.4.7
• 6.4.8
• 6.4.9
• 6.4.10
• 6.4.11
• 6.4.12
• 6.4.13
• 6.4.14
• 6.4.15
• 6.5.0
• 6.5.1
• 6.5.2

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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CVSSv4info

CVSSv3info

CVSSv2info

Exploitinginfo

Threat Intelligenceinfo

Countermeasuresinfo

Timelineinfo

Sourcesinfo

Entryinfo

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