Bug 2395260 (CVE-2023-53167)

Summary: CVE-2023-53167 kernel: tracing: Fix null pointer dereference in tracing_err_log_open()
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
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Priority: low    
Version: unspecifiedKeywords: Security
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OS: Linux   
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2025-09-15 15:03:51 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

tracing: Fix null pointer dereference in tracing_err_log_open()

Fix an issue in function 'tracing_err_log_open'.
The function doesn't call 'seq_open' if the file is opened only with
write permissions, which results in 'file->private_data' being left as null.
If we then use 'lseek' on that opened file, 'seq_lseek' dereferences
'file->private_data' in 'mutex_lock(&m->lock)', resulting in a kernel panic.
Writing to this node requires root privileges, therefore this bug
has very little security impact.

Tracefs node: /sys/kernel/tracing/error_log

Example Kernel panic:

Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 0000000000000038
Call trace:
 mutex_lock+0x30/0x110
 seq_lseek+0x34/0xb8
 __arm64_sys_lseek+0x6c/0xb8
 invoke_syscall+0x58/0x13c
 el0_svc_common+0xc4/0x10c
 do_el0_svc+0x24/0x98
 el0_svc+0x24/0x88
 el0t_64_sync_handler+0x84/0xe4
 el0t_64_sync+0x1b4/0x1b8
Code: d503201f aa0803e0 aa1f03e1 aa0103e9 (c8e97d02)
---[ end trace 561d1b49c12cf8a5 ]---
Kernel panic - not syncing: Oops: Fatal exception