CVE-2023-53431 scsi: ses: Handle enclosure with just a primary component gracefully
A null pointer dereference in the Linux kernel SCSI SES driver causes a crash when handling enclosures with only a primary component.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2023-53431?
CVE-2023-53431 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 18 Sep 2025. 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:
scsi: ses: Handle enclosure with just a primary component gracefully
This reverts commit 3fe97ff3d949 ("scsi: ses: Don't attach if enclosure has no components") and introduces proper handling of case where there are no detected secondary components, but primary component (enumerated in num_enclosures) does exist. That fix was originally proposed by Ding Hui <[email protected]>.
Completely ignoring devices that have one primary enclosure and no secondary one results in ses_intf_add() bailing completely
scsi 2:0:0:254: enclosure has no enumerated components scsi 2:0:0:254: Failed to bind enclosure -12ven in valid configurations such
even on valid configurations with 1 primary and 0 secondary enclosures as below:
# sg_ses /dev/sg0 3PARdata SES 3321 Supported diagnostic pages: Supported Diagnostic Pages [sdp] [0x0] Configuration (SES) [cf] [0x1] Short Enclosure Status (SES) [ses] [0x8] # sg_ses -p cf /dev/sg0 3PARdata SES 3321 Configuration diagnostic page: number of secondary subenclosures: 0 generation code: 0x0 enclosure descriptor list Subenclosure identifier: 0 [primary] relative ES process id: 0, number of ES processes: 1 number of type descriptor headers: 1 enclosure logical identifier (hex): 20000002ac02068d enclosure vendor: 3PARdata product: VV rev: 3321 type descriptor header and text list Element type: Unspecified, subenclosure id: 0 number of possible elements: 1
The changelog for the original fix follows
===== We can get a crash when disconnecting the iSCSI session, the call trace like this:
[ffff00002a00fb70] kfree at ffff00000830e224 [ffff00002a00fba0] ses_intf_remove at ffff000001f200e4 [ffff00002a00fbd0] device_del at ffff0000086b6a98 [ffff00002a00fc50] device_unregister at ffff0000086b6d58 [ffff00002a00fc70] __scsi_remove_device at ffff00000870608c [ffff00002a00fca0] scsi_remove_device at ffff000008706134 [ffff00002a00fcc0] __scsi_remove_target at ffff0000087062e4 [ffff00002a00fd10] scsi_remove_target at ffff0000087064c0 [ffff00002a00fd70] __iscsi_unbind_session at ffff000001c872c4 [ffff00002a00fdb0] process_one_work at ffff00000810f35c [ffff00002a00fe00] worker_thread at ffff00000810f648 [ffff00002a00fe70] kthread at ffff000008116e98
In ses_intf_add, components count could be 0, and kcalloc 0 size scomp, but not saved in edev->component[i].scratch
In this situation, edev->component[0].scratch is an invalid pointer, when kfree it in ses_intf_remove_enclosure, a crash like above would happen The call trace also could be other random cases when kfree cannot catch the invalid pointer
We should not use edev->component[] array when the components count is 0 We also need check index when use edev->component[] array in ses_enclosure_data_process =====
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53431?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2023-53431?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2023-53431 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53431 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2023-53431, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53431, GHSA-36rm-q238-p59m, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53431.