Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2023-52831

medium Nessus Plugin ID 226461

Synopsis

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed with a vulnerability that the vendor indicates will not be patched.

Description

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

- In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: cpu/hotplug: Don't offline the last non-isolated CPU If a system has isolated CPUs via the isolcpus= command line parameter, then an attempt to offline the last housekeeping CPU will result in a WARN_ON() when rebuilding the scheduler domains and a subsequent panic due to and unhandled empty CPU mas in partition_sched_domains_locked().
cpuset_hotplug_workfn() rebuild_sched_domains_locked() ndoms = generate_sched_domains(&doms, &attr);
cpumask_and(doms[0], top_cpuset.effective_cpus, housekeeping_cpumask(HK_FLAG_DOMAIN)); Thus results in an empty CPU mask which triggers the warning and then the subsequent crash: WARNING: CPU: 4 PID: 80 at kernel/sched/topology.c:2366 build_sched_domains+0x120c/0x1408 Call trace:
build_sched_domains+0x120c/0x1408 partition_sched_domains_locked+0x234/0x880 rebuild_sched_domains_locked+0x37c/0x798 rebuild_sched_domains+0x30/0x58 cpuset_hotplug_workfn+0x2a8/0x930 Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address fffe80027ab37080 partition_sched_domains_locked+0x318/0x880 rebuild_sched_domains_locked+0x37c/0x798 Aside of the resulting crash, it does not make any sense to offline the last last housekeeping CPU. Prevent this by masking out the non-housekeeping CPUs when selecting a target CPU for initiating the CPU unplug operation via the work queue. (CVE-2023-52831)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

Solution

There is no known solution at this time.

Plugin Details

Severity: Medium

ID: 226461

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2023_52831.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 3/5/2025

Updated: 3/5/2025

Supported Sensors: Nessus Agent, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Low

Score: 3.6

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 4.6

Temporal Score: 3.4

Vector: CVSS2#AV:L/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:N/A:C

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2023-52831

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5.5

Temporal Score: 4.8

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

Required KB Items: Host/cpu, Host/local_checks_enabled, global_settings/vendor_unpatched

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Vulnerability Publication Date: 12/13/2023

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2023-52831

Detections

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