CVE-2023-53550 cpufreq: amd-pstate: fix global sysfs attribute type
A type mismatch in AMD P-State sysfs attributes causes Control Flow Integrity failures, leading to kernel crashes when attributes are read.
- 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
What is CVE-2023-53550?
CVE-2023-53550 is a medium-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 4 Oct 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:
cpufreq: amd-pstate: fix global sysfs attribute type
In commit 3666062b87ec ("cpufreq: amd-pstate: move to use bus_get_dev_root()") the "amd_pstate" attributes where moved from a dedicated kobject to the cpu root kobject.
While the dedicated kobject expects to contain kobj_attributes the root kobject needs device_attributes.
As the changed arguments are not used by the callbacks it works most of the time. However CFI will detect this issue:
[ 4947.849350] CFI failure at dev_attr_show+0x24/0x60 (target: show_status+0x0/0x70; expected type: 0x8651b1de) ... [ 4947.849409] Call Trace: [ 4947.849410] <TASK> [ 4947.849411] ? __warn+0xcf/0x1c0 [ 4947.849414] ? dev_attr_show+0x24/0x60 [ 4947.849415] ? report_cfi_failure+0x4e/0x60 [ 4947.849417] ? handle_cfi_failure+0x14c/0x1d0 [ 4947.849419] ? __cfi_show_status+0x10/0x10 [ 4947.849420] ? handle_bug+0x4f/0x90 [ 4947.849421] ? exc_invalid_op+0x1a/0x60 [ 4947.849422] ? asm_exc_invalid_op+0x1a/0x20 [ 4947.849424] ? __cfi_show_status+0x10/0x10 [ 4947.849425] ? dev_attr_show+0x24/0x60 [ 4947.849426] sysfs_kf_seq_show+0xa6/0x110 [ 4947.849433] seq_read_iter+0x16c/0x4b0 [ 4947.849436] vfs_read+0x272/0x2d0 [ 4947.849438] ksys_read+0x72/0xe0 [ 4947.849439] do_syscall_64+0x76/0xb0 [ 4947.849440] ? do_user_addr_fault+0x252/0x650 [ 4947.849442] ? exc_page_fault+0x7a/0x1b0 [ 4947.849443] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x72/0xdc
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53550?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2023-53550?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade to the fixed version. Memory-safe languages, compiler hardening and fuzzing prevent most new cases. More about Memory corruption.
Is CVE-2023-53550 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53550 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2023-53550, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53550, GHSA-m48w-fr7p-r6p2, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53550.