# CVE-2023-52761: riscv: VMAP_STACK overflow detection thread-safe

> A race condition in RISC-V VMAP_STACK overflow detection can cause kernel corruption and crashes when multiple CPUs overflow simultaneously.

- **Severity:** High 7.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/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:** 21 May 2024
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2023-52761, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-52761, GHSA-jgx8-h977-4wfh, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2023-52761, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2023-52761, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2023-52761, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-52761

## What is CVE-2023-52761?

CVE-2023-52761 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 21 May 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:

riscv: VMAP_STACK overflow detection thread-safe

commit 31da94c25aea ("riscv: add VMAP_STACK overflow detection") added
support for CONFIG_VMAP_STACK. If overflow is detected, CPU switches to
`shadow_stack` temporarily before switching finally to per-cpu
`overflow_stack`.

If two CPUs/harts are racing and end up in over flowing kernel stack, one
or both will end up corrupting each other state because `shadow_stack` is
not per-cpu. This patch optimizes per-cpu overflow stack switch by
directly picking per-cpu `overflow_stack` and gets rid of `shadow_stack`.

Following are the changes in this patch

 - Defines an asm macro to obtain per-cpu symbols in destination
   register.
 - In entry.S, when overflow is detected, per-cpu overflow stack is
   located using per-cpu asm macro. Computing per-cpu symbol requires
   a temporary register. x31 is saved away into CSR_SCRATCH
   (CSR_SCRATCH is anyways zero since we're in kernel).

Please see Links for additional relevant disccussion and alternative
solution.

Tested by `echo EXHAUST_STACK > /sys/kernel/debug/provoke-crash/DIRECT`
Kernel crash log below

 Insufficient stack space to handle exception!/debug/provoke-crash/DIRECT
 Task stack:     [0xff20000010a98000..0xff20000010a9c000]
 Overflow stack: [0xff600001f7d98370..0xff600001f7d99370]
 CPU: 1 PID: 205 Comm: bash Not tainted 6.1.0-rc2-00001-g328a1f96f7b9 #34
 Hardware name: riscv-virtio,qemu (DT)
 epc : __memset+0x60/0xfc
  ra : recursive_loop+0x48/0xc6 [lkdtm]
 epc : ffffffff808de0e4 ra : ffffffff0163a752 sp : ff20000010a97e80
  gp : ffffffff815c0330 tp : ff600000820ea280 t0 : ff20000010a97e88
  t1 : 000000000000002e t2 : 3233206874706564 s0 : ff20000010a982b0
  s1 : 0000000000000012 a0 : ff20000010a97e88 a1 : 0000000000000000
  a2 : 0000000000000400 a3 : ff20000010a98288 a4 : 0000000000000000
  a5 : 0000000000000000 a6 : fffffffffffe43f0 a7 : 00007fffffffffff
  s2 : ff20000010a97e88 s3 : ffffffff01644680 s4 : ff20000010a9be90
  s5 : ff600000842ba6c0 s6 : 00aaaaaac29e42b0 s7 : 00fffffff0aa3684
  s8 : 00aaaaaac2978040 s9 : 0000000000000065 s10: 00ffffff8a7cad10
  s11: 00ffffff8a76a4e0 t3 : ffffffff815dbaf4 t4 : ffffffff815dbaf4
  t5 : ffffffff815dbab8 t6 : ff20000010a9bb48
 status: 0000000200000120 badaddr: ff20000010a97e88 cause: 000000000000000f
 Kernel panic - not syncing: Kernel stack overflow
 CPU: 1 PID: 205 Comm: bash Not tainted 6.1.0-rc2-00001-g328a1f96f7b9 #34
 Hardware name: riscv-virtio,qemu (DT)
 Call Trace:
 [<ffffffff80006754>] dump_backtrace+0x30/0x38
 [<ffffffff808de798>] show_stack+0x40/0x4c
 [<ffffffff808ea2a8>] dump_stack_lvl+0x44/0x5c
 [<ffffffff808ea2d8>] dump_stack+0x18/0x20
 [<ffffffff808dec06>] panic+0x126/0x2fe
 [<ffffffff800065ea>] walk_stackframe+0x0/0xf0
 [<ffffffff0163a752>] recursive_loop+0x48/0xc6 [lkdtm]
 SMP: stopping secondary CPUs
 ---[ end Kernel panic - not syncing: Kernel stack overflow ]---

Weakness: CWE-674 (Uncontrolled Recursion)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-52761?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-52761?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2023-52761 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-52761 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-2023-52761 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-52761 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 21 May 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-2023-52761 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-2023-52761/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-52761/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-52761
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-52761
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-52761

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-52761/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.
