CVE-2023-54242 block, bfq: Fix division by zero error on zero wsum
A local attacker with root privileges can cause a kernel crash via division by zero in the BFQ I/O scheduler when weighted sum is zero.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- An administrator
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2023-54242?
CVE-2023-54242 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:
block, bfq: Fix division by zero error on zero wsum
When the weighted sum is zero the calculation of limit causes a division by zero error. Fix this by continuing to the next level.
This was discovered by running as root:
stress-ng --ioprio 0
Fixes divison by error oops:
[ 521.450556] divide error: 0000 [#1] SMP NOPTI [ 521.450766] CPU: 2 PID: 2684464 Comm: stress-ng-iopri Not tainted 6.2.1-1280.native #1 [ 521.451117] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.16.1-0-g3208b098f51a-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 [ 521.451627] RIP: 0010:bfqq_request_over_limit+0x207/0x400 [ 521.451875] Code: 01 48 8d 0c c8 74 0b 48 8b 82 98 00 00 00 48 8d 0c c8 8b 85 34 ff ff ff 48 89 ca 41 0f af 41 50 48 d1 ea 48 98 48 01 d0 31 d2 <48> f7 f1 41 39 41 48 89 85 34 ff ff ff 0f 8c 7b 01 00 00 49 8b 44 [ 521.452699] RSP: 0018:ffffb1af84eb3948 EFLAGS: 00010046 [ 521.452938] RAX: 000000000000003c RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: 0000000000000000 [ 521.453262] RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: ffffb1af84eb3978 [ 521.453584] RBP: ffffb1af84eb3a30 R08: 0000000000000001 R09: ffff8f88ab8a4ba0 [ 521.453905] R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000001 R12: ffff8f88ab8a4b18 [ 521.454224] R13: ffff8f8699093000 R14: 0000000000000001 R15: ffffb1af84eb3970 [ 521.454549] FS: 00005640b6b0b580(0000) GS:ffff8f88b3880000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [ 521.454912] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [ 521.455170] CR2: 00007ffcbcae4e38 CR3: 00000002e46de001 CR4: 0000000000770ee0 [ 521.455491] PKRU: 55555554 [ 521.455619] Call Trace: [ 521.455736] <TASK> [ 521.455837] ? bfq_request_merge+0x3a/0xc0 [ 521.456027] ? elv_merge+0x115/0x140 [ 521.456191] bfq_limit_depth+0xc8/0x240 [ 521.456366] __blk_mq_alloc_requests+0x21a/0x2c0 [ 521.456577] blk_mq_submit_bio+0x23c/0x6c0 [ 521.456766] __submit_bio+0xb8/0x140 [ 521.457236] submit_bio_noacct_nocheck+0x212/0x300 [ 521.457748] submit_bio_noacct+0x1a6/0x580 [ 521.458220] submit_bio+0x43/0x80 [ 521.458660] ext4_io_submit+0x23/0x80 [ 521.459116] ext4_do_writepages+0x40a/0xd00 [ 521.459596] ext4_writepages+0x65/0x100 [ 521.460050] do_writepages+0xb7/0x1c0 [ 521.460492] __filemap_fdatawrite_range+0xa6/0x100 [ 521.460979] file_write_and_wait_range+0xbf/0x140 [ 521.461452] ext4_sync_file+0x105/0x340 [ 521.461882] __x64_sys_fsync+0x67/0x100 [ 521.462305] ? syscall_exit_to_user_mode+0x2c/0x1c0 [ 521.462768] do_syscall_64+0x3b/0xc0 [ 521.463165] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x5a/0xc4 [ 521.463621] RIP: 0033:0x5640b6c56590 [ 521.464006] Code: 00 f7 d8 64 89 01 48 83 c8 ff c3 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 0f 1f 44 00 00 80 3d 71 70 0e 00 00 74 17 b8 4a 00 00 00 0f 05 <48> 3d 00 f0 ff ff 77 48 c3 0f 1f 80 00 00 00 00 48 83 ec 18 89 7c
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-54242?
How do I fix CVE-2023-54242?
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-2023-54242 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-54242 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2023-54242, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-54242, GHSA-24q6-h6j8-wpf6, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2023-54242, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54242.