Linux Kernel up to 6.3.1 msm_drm_init null pointer dereference

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability has been found in Linux Kernel up to 6.3.1 and classified as critical. Impacted is the function msm_drm_init. The manipulation leads to null pointer dereference. This vulnerability is referenced as CVE-2023-54217. No exploit is available. The affected component should be upgraded.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, has been found in Linux Kernel up to 6.3.1. This issue affects the function msm_drm_init. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a null pointer dereference vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-476. A NULL pointer dereference occurs when the application dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid, but is NULL, typically causing a crash or exit. Impacted is availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: Revert "drm/msm: Add missing check and destroy for alloc_ordered_workqueue" This reverts commit 643b7d0869cc7f1f7a5ac7ca6bd25d88f54e31d0. A recent patch that tried to fix up the msm_drm_init() paths with respect to the workqueue but only ended up making things worse: First, the newly added calls to msm_drm_uninit() on early errors would trigger NULL-pointer dereferences, for example, as the kms pointer would not have been initialised. (Note that these paths were also modified by a second broken error handling patch which in effect cancelled out this part when merged.) Second, the newly added allocation sanity check would still leak the previously allocated drm device. Instead of trying to salvage what was badly broken (and clearly not tested), let's revert the bad commit so that clean and backportable fixes can be added in its place. Patchwork: https://patchwork.freedesktop.org/patch/525107/

It is possible to read the advisory at git.kernel.org. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2023-54217 since 12/30/2025. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 281726 (Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2023-54217), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 6.3.2 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 9078b434587722a6f2958dc1d536af6e39634db9/dfa70344d1b5f5ff08525a8c872c8dd5e82fc5d9 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 (281726) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-2941). Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

Affected

• Debian Linux
• Amazon Linux 2
• IBM Power Hardware Management Console
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Ubuntu Linux
• SUSE Linux
• Oracle Linux
• Open Source Linux Kernel
• RESF Rocky Linux
• IBM DataPower Gateway

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 6.3.0
• 6.3.1

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

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Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

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