CVE-2023-52584 spmi: mediatek: Fix UAF on device remove

What is CVE-2023-52584?

CVE-2023-52584 is a low-severity use after free vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 6 Mar 2024. An attacker needs administrator access to exploit it, with no action from the victim.

Official description

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

spmi: mediatek: Fix UAF on device remove

The pmif driver data that contains the clocks is allocated along with spmi_controller. On device remove, spmi_controller will be freed first, and then devres , including the clocks, will be cleanup. This leads to UAF because putting the clocks will access the clocks in the pmif driver data, which is already freed along with spmi_controller.

This can be reproduced by enabling DEBUG_TEST_DRIVER_REMOVE and building the kernel with KASAN.

Fix the UAF issue by using unmanaged clk_bulk_get() and putting the clocks before freeing spmi_controller.

Weakness: CWE-416

Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-52584?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2023-52584?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade to the fixed version. These bugs are found with fuzzing and sanitisers and avoided by memory-safe languages. More about Use after free.

Is CVE-2023-52584 being exploited?

It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2023-52584 exists.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as BELL-CVE-2023-52584, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-52584, GHSA-jmmm-pcpp-rrc4, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-52584.