CVE-2023-54007 vmci_host: fix a race condition in vmci_host_poll() causing GPF

What is CVE-2023-54007?

CVE-2023-54007 is a vulnerability in Linux, published on 24 Dec 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:

vmci_host: fix a race condition in vmci_host_poll() causing GPF

During fuzzing, a general protection fault is observed in vmci_host_poll().

general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000019: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x00000000000000c8-0x00000000000000cf] RIP: 0010:__lock_acquire+0xf3/0x5e00 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:4926 <- omitting registers -> Call Trace: <TASK> lock_acquire+0x1a4/0x4a0 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:5672 __raw_spin_lock_irqsave include/linux/spinlock_api_smp.h:110 [inline] _raw_spin_lock_irqsave+0xb3/0x100 kernel/locking/spinlock.c:162 add_wait_queue+0x3d/0x260 kernel/sched/wait.c:22 poll_wait include/linux/poll.h:49 [inline] vmci_host_poll+0xf8/0x2b0 drivers/misc/vmw_vmci/vmci_host.c:174 vfs_poll include/linux/poll.h:88 [inline] do_pollfd fs/select.c:873 [inline] do_poll fs/select.c:921 [inline] do_sys_poll+0xc7c/0x1aa0 fs/select.c:1015 __do_sys_ppoll fs/select.c:1121 [inline] __se_sys_ppoll+0x2cc/0x330 fs/select.c:1101 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:51 [inline] do_syscall_64+0x4e/0xa0 arch/x86/entry/common.c:82 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x46/0xb0

Example thread interleaving that causes the general protection fault is as follows:

CPU1 (vmci_host_poll) CPU2 (vmci_host_do_init_context) ----- ----- // Read uninitialized context context = vmci_host_dev->context; // Initialize context vmci_host_dev->context = vmci_ctx_create(); vmci_host_dev->ct_type = VMCIOBJ_CONTEXT;

if (vmci_host_dev->ct_type == VMCIOBJ_CONTEXT) { // Dereferencing the wrong pointer poll_wait(..., &context->host_context); }

In this scenario, vmci_host_poll() reads vmci_host_dev->context first, and then reads vmci_host_dev->ct_type to check that vmci_host_dev->context is initialized. However, since these two reads are not atomically executed, there is a chance of a race condition as described above.

To fix this race condition, read vmci_host_dev->context after checking the value of vmci_host_dev->ct_type so that vmci_host_poll() always reads an initialized context.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-54007?

How do I fix CVE-2023-54007?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2023-54007 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-54007 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as BELL-CVE-2023-54007, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-54007, GHSA-j5xc-fjvv-7rjx, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54007.