CVE-2023-53694 riscv: ftrace: Fixup panic by disabling preemption
A race condition in the RISC-V Linux kernel ftrace implementation can cause a system panic if preemption occurs during code patching.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Not stated
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2023-53694?
CVE-2023-53694 is a vulnerability in Linux, published on 22 Oct 2025.
Official description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
riscv: ftrace: Fixup panic by disabling preemption
In RISCV, we must use an AUIPC + JALR pair to encode an immediate, forming a jump that jumps to an address over 4K. This may cause errors if we want to enable kernel preemption and remove dependency from patching code with stop_machine(). For example, if a task was switched out on auipc. And, if we changed the ftrace function before it was switched back, then it would jump to an address that has updated 11:0 bits mixing with previous XLEN:12 part.
p: patched area performed by dynamic ftrace ftrace_prologue: p| REG_S ra, -SZREG(sp) p| auipc ra, 0x? ------------> preempted ... change ftrace function ... p| jalr -?(ra) <------------- switched back p| REG_L ra, -SZREG(sp) func: xxx ret
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53694?
How do I fix CVE-2023-53694?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2023-53694 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53694 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2023-53694, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53694, GHSA-65c4-f76q-3c6g, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2023-53694, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53694.