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CVE-2023-53817 (GCVE-0-2023-53817)

Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2025-12-09 00:01 – Updated: 2026-08-05 09:16
VLAI
Title
crypto: lib/mpi - avoid null pointer deref in mpi_cmp_ui()
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: crypto: lib/mpi - avoid null pointer deref in mpi_cmp_ui() During NVMeTCP Authentication a controller can trigger a kernel oops by specifying the 8192 bit Diffie Hellman group and passing a correctly sized, but zeroed Diffie Hellamn value. mpi_cmp_ui() was detecting this if the second parameter was 0, but 1 is passed from dh_is_pubkey_valid(). This causes the null pointer u->d to be dereferenced towards the end of mpi_cmp_ui()
Severity
7.5 (High)
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Assigner
References
Impacted products
Vendor Product Version CPE status
Linux Linux Affected: 12f008b6dc5ff1c822fdb2198d20e3dbdc92f3f5 , < fde791e8a96a64ea7b0ad2440e43586447a209c6 (git)
Affected: 12f008b6dc5ff1c822fdb2198d20e3dbdc92f3f5 , < ae63e84ffda74267bf7277c38415ba38389229a0 (git)
Affected: 12f008b6dc5ff1c822fdb2198d20e3dbdc92f3f5 , < 61f5453e9706e99713825594e0c8f9031485fb5f (git)
Affected: 12f008b6dc5ff1c822fdb2198d20e3dbdc92f3f5 , < 0fc7147c694394f8a8cbc19570c6bc918cac0906 (git)
Affected: 12f008b6dc5ff1c822fdb2198d20e3dbdc92f3f5 , < 67589d247909043e94d2dd5fb590958e0f99d58d (git)
Affected: 12f008b6dc5ff1c822fdb2198d20e3dbdc92f3f5 , < d3ad023a39f1127dcfd331c562673355dc078650 (git)
Affected: 12f008b6dc5ff1c822fdb2198d20e3dbdc92f3f5 , < 12ac013ad7ff0df066451e825801d805095b3776 (git)
Affected: 12f008b6dc5ff1c822fdb2198d20e3dbdc92f3f5 , < 9e47a758b70167c9301d2b44d2569f86c7796f2d (git)
guessed Create a notification for this product.
Linux Linux Affected: 3.7
Unaffected: 0 , < 3.7 (semver)
Unaffected: 4.14.326 , ≤ 4.14.* (semver)
Unaffected: 4.19.295 , ≤ 4.19.* (semver)
Unaffected: 5.4.257 , ≤ 5.4.* (semver)
Unaffected: 5.10.197 , ≤ 5.10.* (semver)
Unaffected: 5.15.133 , ≤ 5.15.* (semver)
Unaffected: 6.1.55 , ≤ 6.1.* (semver)
Unaffected: 6.5.5 , ≤ 6.5.* (semver)
Unaffected: 6.6 , ≤ * (original_commit_for_fix)
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          "lang": "en",
          "value": "In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:\n\ncrypto: lib/mpi - avoid null pointer deref in mpi_cmp_ui()\n\nDuring NVMeTCP Authentication a controller can trigger a kernel\noops by specifying the 8192 bit Diffie Hellman group and passing\na correctly sized, but zeroed Diffie Hellamn value.\nmpi_cmp_ui() was detecting this if the second parameter was 0,\nbut 1 is passed from dh_is_pubkey_valid(). This causes the null\npointer u-\u003ed to be dereferenced towards the end of mpi_cmp_ui()"
        }
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            "version": "3.1"
          },
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              "lang": "en",
              "value": "AV:N - The vulnerable code is reached from NVMe-over-Fabrics (NVMe/TCP) DH-HMAC-CHAP authentication data received from a remote peer \u2014 either a malicious/MITM controller sending a Challenge to a host, or a remote initiator sending a Reply to an nvmet-tcp target on TCP/4420. The attacker-controlled bytes travel over the network with no locality requirement.\nAC:L - Triggering is fully deterministic: the attacker simply advertises a non-NULL DH group (e.g. ffdhe8192) and supplies a correctly sized but all-zero DH value, which makes mpi_read_raw_from_sgl() produce an MPI with nlimbs==0 and d==NULL. No race, no memory-layout dependency, and NVMe/TCP in-band authentication is a normal shipped configuration.\nPR:N - On the target side nvmet_auth_reply() computes the DH shared secret from the peer\u0027s DH value before the DH-HMAC-CHAP response HMAC is verified, so this is a pre-authentication code path; on the host side an impersonating/MITM controller needs no credentials to send the Challenge.\nUI:N - An nvmet-tcp target listens passively and the attacker drives the whole DH-HMAC-CHAP exchange; no local user action is required to trigger the oops.\nS:U - The NULL dereference crashes the kernel that is processing the authentication message; the impact stays within that kernel\u0027s own security authority with no boundary crossing.\nC:N - The fault is a read of address 0 (u-\u003ed[0]) that immediately oopses; no attacker-influenced memory is read back or returned to the peer, so no information is disclosed.\nI:N - The bug is a NULL pointer read, not a write or type confusion; nothing is corrupted and there is no primitive for modifying kernel memory or hijacking control flow.\nA:H - Dereferencing the NULL u-\u003ed produces a kernel oops in the NVMe auth work handler, killing the connection/worker and panicking the box under panic_on_oops, and it can be re-triggered on every new authentication attempt."
            }
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        "dateUpdated": "2026-08-05T09:16:11.527Z",
        "orgId": "416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67",
        "shortName": "Linux"
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          "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ae63e84ffda74267bf7277c38415ba38389229a0"
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          "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/61f5453e9706e99713825594e0c8f9031485fb5f"
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      "title": "crypto: lib/mpi - avoid null pointer deref in mpi_cmp_ui()",
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    "cveId": "CVE-2023-53817",
    "datePublished": "2025-12-09T00:01:15.411Z",
    "dateReserved": "2025-12-08T23:58:35.277Z",
    "dateUpdated": "2026-08-05T09:16:11.527Z",
    "state": "PUBLISHED"
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      "date": "2026-09-16",
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This causes the null\\npointer u-\u003ed to be dereferenced towards the end of mpi_cmp_ui()\"}],\"affected\":[{\"source\":\"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67\",\"affectedData\":[{\"vendor\":\"Linux\",\"product\":\"Linux\",\"defaultStatus\":\"unaffected\",\"programFiles\":[\"lib/crypto/mpi/mpi-cmp.c\"],\"repo\":\"https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git\",\"versions\":[{\"version\":\"12f008b6dc5ff1c822fdb2198d20e3dbdc92f3f5\",\"lessThan\":\"fde791e8a96a64ea7b0ad2440e43586447a209c6\",\"versionType\":\"git\",\"status\":\"affected\"},{\"version\":\"12f008b6dc5ff1c822fdb2198d20e3dbdc92f3f5\",\"lessThan\":\"ae63e84ffda74267bf7277c38415ba38389229a0\",\"versionType\":\"git\",\"status\":\"affected\"},{\"version\":\"12f008b6dc5ff1c822fdb2198d20e3dbdc92f3f5\",\"lessThan\":\"61f5453e9706e99713825594e0c8f9031485fb5f\",\"versionType\":\"git\",\"status\":\"affected\"},{\"version\":\"12f008b6dc5ff1c822fdb2198d20e3dbdc92f3f5\",\"lessThan\":\"0fc7147c694394f8a8cbc19570c6bc918cac0906\",\"versionType\":\"git\",\"status\":\"affected\"},{\"version\":\"12f008b6dc5ff1c822fdb2198d20e3dbdc92f3f5\",\"lessThan\":\"67589d247909043e94d2dd5fb590958e0f99d58d\",\"versionType\":\"git\",\"status\":\"affected\"},{\"version\":\"12f008b6dc5ff1c822fdb2198d20e3dbdc92f3f5\",\"lessThan\":\"d3ad023a39f1127dcfd331c562673355dc078650\",\"versionType\":\"git\",\"status\":\"affected\"},{\"version\":\"12f008b6dc5ff1c822fdb2198d20e3dbdc92f3f5\",\"lessThan\":\"12ac013ad7ff0df066451e825801d805095b3776\",\"versionType\":\"git\",\"status\":\"affected\"},{\"version\":\"12f008b6dc5ff1c822fdb2198d20e3dbdc92f3f5\",\"lessThan\":\"9e47a758b70167c9301d2b44d2569f86c7796f2d\",\"versionType\":\"git\",\"status\":\"affected\"}]},{\"vendor\":\"Linux\",\"product\":\"Linux\",\"defaultStatus\":\"affected\",\"programFiles\":[\"lib/crypto/mpi/mpi-cmp.c\"],\"repo\":\"https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git\",\"versions\":[{\"version\":\"3.7\",\"status\":\"affected\"},{\"version\":\"0\",\"lessThan\":\"3.7\",\"versionType\":\"semver\",\"status\":\"unaffected\"},{\"version\":\"4.14.326\",\"lessThanOrEqual\":\"4.14.*\",\"versionType\":\"semver\",\"status\":\"unaffected\"},{\"version\":\"4.19.295\",\"lessThanOrEqual\":\"4.19.*\",\"versionType\":\"semver\",\"status\":\"unaffected\"},{\"version\":\"5.4.257\",\"lessThanOrEqual\":\"5.4.*\",\"versionType\":\"semver\",\"status\":\"unaffected\"},{\"version\":\"5.10.197\",\"lessThanOrEqual\":\"5.10.*\",\"versionType\":\"semver\",\"status\":\"unaffected\"},{\"version\":\"5.15.133\",\"lessThanOrEqual\":\"5.15.*\",\"versionType\":\"semver\",\"status\":\"unaffected\"},{\"version\":\"6.1.55\",\"lessThanOrEqual\":\"6.1.*\",\"versionType\":\"semver\",\"status\":\"unaffected\"},{\"version\":\"6.5.5\",\"lessThanOrEqual\":\"6.5.*\",\"versionType\":\"semver\",\"status\":\"unaffected\"},{\"version\":\"6.6\",\"lessThanOrEqual\":\"*\",\"versionType\":\"original_commit_for_fix\",\"status\":\"unaffected\"}]}]}],\"metrics\":{\"cvssMetricV31\":[{\"source\":\"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67\",\"type\":\"Secondary\",\"cvssData\":{\"version\":\"3.1\",\"vectorString\":\"CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H\",\"baseScore\":7.5,\"baseSeverity\":\"HIGH\",\"attackVector\":\"NETWORK\",\"attackComplexity\":\"LOW\",\"privilegesRequired\":\"NONE\",\"userInteraction\":\"NONE\",\"scope\":\"UNCHANGED\",\"confidentialityImpact\":\"NONE\",\"integrityImpact\":\"NONE\",\"availabilityImpact\":\"HIGH\"},\"exploitabilityScore\":3.9,\"impactScore\":3.6}]},\"references\":[{\"url\":\"https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0fc7147c694394f8a8cbc19570c6bc918cac0906\",\"source\":\"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67\"},{\"url\":\"https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/12ac013ad7ff0df066451e825801d805095b3776\",\"source\":\"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67\"},{\"url\":\"https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/61f5453e9706e99713825594e0c8f9031485fb5f\",\"source\":\"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67\"},{\"url\":\"https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/67589d247909043e94d2dd5fb590958e0f99d58d\",\"source\":\"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67\"},{\"url\":\"https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9e47a758b70167c9301d2b44d2569f86c7796f2d\",\"source\":\"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67\"},{\"url\":\"https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ae63e84ffda74267bf7277c38415ba38389229a0\",\"source\":\"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67\"},{\"url\":\"https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d3ad023a39f1127dcfd331c562673355dc078650\",\"source\":\"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67\"},{\"url\":\"https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fde791e8a96a64ea7b0ad2440e43586447a209c6\",\"source\":\"416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67\"}]}}",
    "redhat_vex": {
      "aggregate_severity": "None",
      "current_release_date": "2026-06-30T10:15:16+00:00",
      "cve": "CVE-2023-53817",
      "id": "CVE-2023-53817",
      "initial_release_date": "2023-01-01T00:00:00+00:00",
      "product_status:known_not_affected": "274",
      "source": "Red Hat CSAF VEX",
      "status": "final",
      "title": "kernel: crypto: lib/mpi - avoid null pointer deref in mpi_cmp_ui()",
      "url": "https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/2023/cve-2023-53817.json",
      "version": "3"
    }
  }
}



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Forecast uses a logistic model when the trend is rising, or an exponential decay model when the trend is falling. Fitted via linearized least squares.

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  • Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
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  • Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.


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