# CVE-2023-52511: spi: sun6i: reduce DMA RX transfer width to single byte

> A bug in the Linux kernel's sun6i SPI driver causes data corruption during DMA transfers, potentially leading to denial of service.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.3 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 2 Mar 2024
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2023-52511, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-52511, GHSA-9prw-2r97-97f6, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-52511

## What is CVE-2023-52511?

CVE-2023-52511 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 2 Mar 2024. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

spi: sun6i: reduce DMA RX transfer width to single byte

Through empirical testing it has been determined that sometimes RX SPI
transfers with DMA enabled return corrupted data. This is down to single
or even multiple bytes lost during DMA transfer from SPI peripheral to
memory. It seems the RX FIFO within the SPI peripheral can become
confused when performing bus read accesses wider than a single byte to it
during an active SPI transfer.

This patch reduces the width of individual DMA read accesses to the
RX FIFO to a single byte to mitigate that issue.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-52511?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-52511?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2023-52511 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-52511 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2023-52511 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-52511 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 2 Mar 2024. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-52511 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-52511/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-52511/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-52511
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-52511
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-52511

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-52511/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.