CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2023-52668 — Linux Linux Kernel security vulnerability

Medium CVSS 5.5

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: zoned: fix lock ordering in btrfs_zone_activate() The btrfs CI reported a lockdep warning as follows by running generic generic/129. WARNING: possible circular locking dependency detected 6.7.0-rc5+ #1 Not tainted ------------------------------------------------------ kworker/u5:5/793427 is trying to acquire lock: ffff88813256d028 (&cache->lock){+.+.}-{2:2}, at: btrfs_zone_finish_one_bg+0x5e/0x130 but task is already holding lock: ffff88810a23a318 (&fs_info->zone_active_bgs_lock){+.+.}-{2:2}, at: btrfs_zone_finish_one_bg+0x34/0x130 which lock already depends on the new lock. the existing dependency chain (in reverse order) is: -> #1 (&fs_info->zone_active_bgs_lock){+.+.}-{2:2}: ... -> #0 (&cache->lock){+.+.}-{2:2}: ... This is because we take fs_info->zone_active_bgs_lock after a block_group's lock in btrfs_zone_activate() while doing the opposite in other places. Fix the issue by expanding the fs_info->zone_active_bgs_lock's critical section and taking it before a block_group's lock.

Severity
Medium
CVSS
5.5 (3.1)
Published
2024-05-17
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
linux/kernel
Weaknesses
CWE-667

Affected products

  • linux / linux_kernel
  • linux / linux_kernel / 6.8

Showing 2 representative product identities from 3 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Race condition, TOCTOU, and lifecycle synchronization

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Check exposure

  • Map concurrent actors, shared state, lock boundaries, signals, callbacks, retries, and check-then-use sequences in the affected path.
  • Determine whether untrusted users can influence timing, object names, filesystem state, or repeated state transitions.
  • Identify clustered and multi-process behavior that repository-local tests may not represent.

Remediate safely

  • Make the sensitive state transition atomic or protect it with a consistently ordered synchronization primitive.
  • Perform authorization and invariant checks on the same authoritative object and transaction used for the operation.
  • Use unique private resources, safe ownership transfer, and idempotent operations; add deterministic concurrency regression tests.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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