# CVE-2023-52608: firmware: arm_scmi: Check mailbox/SMT channel for consistency

> A race condition in the Linux kernel SCMI driver allows spurious interrupts to corrupt transaction state, potentially causing denial of service.

- **Severity:** Medium 4.7 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 13 Mar 2024
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2023-52608, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-52608, GHSA-vhvr-7ww4-7fgj, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2023-52608, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-52608

## What is CVE-2023-52608?

CVE-2023-52608 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 13 Mar 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

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

firmware: arm_scmi: Check mailbox/SMT channel for consistency

On reception of a completion interrupt the shared memory area is accessed
to retrieve the message header at first and then, if the message sequence
number identifies a transaction which is still pending, the related
payload is fetched too.

When an SCMI command times out the channel ownership remains with the
platform until eventually a late reply is received and, as a consequence,
any further transmission attempt remains pending, waiting for the channel
to be relinquished by the platform.

Once that late reply is received the channel ownership is given back
to the agent and any pending request is then allowed to proceed and
overwrite the SMT area of the just delivered late reply; then the wait
for the reply to the new request starts.

It has been observed that the spurious IRQ related to the late reply can
be wrongly associated with the freshly enqueued request: when that happens
the SCMI stack in-flight lookup procedure is fooled by the fact that the
message header now present in the SMT area is related to the new pending
transaction, even though the real reply has still to arrive.

This race-condition on the A2P channel can be detected by looking at the
channel status bits: a genuine reply from the platform will have set the
channel free bit before triggering the completion IRQ.

Add a consistency check to validate such condition in the A2P ISR.

Weakness: CWE-362 (Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-52608?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-52608?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2023-52608 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-52608 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-2023-52608 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-52608 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 13 Mar 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-52608 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-2023-52608/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-52608/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-52608
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-52608
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-52608

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-52608/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.