CVE-2023-54170 keys: Fix linking a duplicate key to a keyring's assoc_array
A local attacker can trigger a kernel crash by causing duplicate key linking in the keyring assoc_array during DNS queries.
- 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-2023-54170?
CVE-2023-54170 is a denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 30 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:
keys: Fix linking a duplicate key to a keyring's assoc_array
When making a DNS query inside the kernel using dns_query(), the request code can in rare cases end up creating a duplicate index key in the assoc_array of the destination keyring. It is eventually found by a BUG_ON() check in the assoc_array implementation and results in a crash.
Example report: [2158499.700025] kernel BUG at ../lib/assoc_array.c:652! [2158499.700039] invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] SMP PTI [2158499.700065] CPU: 3 PID: 31985 Comm: kworker/3:1 Kdump: loaded Not tainted 5.3.18-150300.59.90-default #1 SLE15-SP3 [2158499.700096] Hardware name: VMware, Inc. VMware Virtual Platform/440BX Desktop Reference Platform, BIOS 6.00 11/12/2020 [2158499.700351] Workqueue: cifsiod cifs_resolve_server [cifs] [2158499.700380] RIP: 0010:assoc_array_insert+0x85f/0xa40 [2158499.700401] Code: ff 74 2b 48 8b 3b 49 8b 45 18 4c 89 e6 48 83 e7 fe e8 95 ec 74 00 3b 45 88 7d db 85 c0 79 d4 0f 0b 0f 0b 0f 0b e8 41 f2 be ff <0f> 0b 0f 0b 81 7d 88 ff ff ff 7f 4c 89 eb 4c 8b ad 58 ff ff ff 0f [2158499.700448] RSP: 0018:ffffc0bd6187faf0 EFLAGS: 00010282 [2158499.700470] RAX: ffff9f1ea7da2fe8 RBX: ffff9f1ea7da2fc1 RCX: 0000000000000005 [2158499.700492] RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000005 RDI: 0000000000000000 [2158499.700515] RBP: ffffc0bd6187fbb0 R08: ffff9f185faf1100 R09: 0000000000000000 [2158499.700538] R10: ffff9f1ea7da2cc0 R11: 000000005ed8cec8 R12: ffffc0bd6187fc28 [2158499.700561] R13: ffff9f15feb8d000 R14: ffff9f1ea7da2fc0 R15: ffff9f168dc0d740 [2158499.700585] FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff9f185fac0000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [2158499.700610] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [2158499.700630] CR2: 00007fdd94fca238 CR3: 0000000809d8c006 CR4: 00000000003706e0 [2158499.700702] Call Trace: [2158499.700741] ? key_alloc+0x447/0x4b0 [2158499.700768] ? __key_link_begin+0x43/0xa0 [2158499.700790] __key_link_begin+0x43/0xa0 [2158499.700814] request_key_and_link+0x2c7/0x730 [2158499.700847] ? dns_resolver_read+0x20/0x20 [dns_resolver] [2158499.700873] ? key_default_cmp+0x20/0x20 [2158499.700898] request_key_tag+0x43/0xa0 [2158499.700926] dns_query+0x114/0x2ca [dns_resolver] [2158499.701127] dns_resolve_server_name_to_ip+0x194/0x310 [cifs] [2158499.701164] ? scnprintf+0x49/0x90 [2158499.701190] ? __switch_to_asm+0x40/0x70 [2158499.701211] ? __switch_to_asm+0x34/0x70 [2158499.701405] reconn_set_ipaddr_from_hostname+0x81/0x2a0 [cifs] [2158499.701603] cifs_resolve_server+0x4b/0xd0 [cifs] [2158499.701632] process_one_work+0x1f8/0x3e0 [2158499.701658] worker_thread+0x2d/0x3f0 [2158499.701682] ? process_one_work+0x3e0/0x3e0 [2158499.701703] kthread+0x10d/0x130 [2158499.701723] ? kthread_park+0xb0/0xb0 [2158499.701746] ret_from_fork+0x1f/0x40
The situation occurs as follows: * Some kernel facility invokes dns_query() to resolve a hostname, for example, "abcdef". The function registers its global DNS resolver cache as current->cred.thread_keyring and passes the query to request_key_net() -> request_key_tag() -> request_key_and_link(). * Function request_key_and_link() creates a keyring_search_context object. Its match_data.cmp method gets set via a call to type->match_preparse() (resolves to dns_resolver_match_preparse()) to dns_resolver_cmp(). * Function request_key_and_link() continues and invokes search_process_keyrings_rcu() which returns that a given key was not found. The control is then passed to request_key_and_link() -> construct_alloc_key(). * Concurrently to that, a second task similarly makes a DNS query for "abcdef." and its result gets inserted into the DNS resolver cache. * Back on the first task, function construct_alloc_key() first runs __key_link_begin() to determine an assoc_array_edit operation to insert a new key. Index keys in the array are compared exactly as-is, using keyring_compare_object(). The operation ---truncated---
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-54170?
How do I fix CVE-2023-54170?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2023-54170 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-54170 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2023-54170, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-54170, GHSA-r3pm-w3wq-c59c, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54170.