What is CVE-2023-1998?

CVE-2023-1998 is a Medium severity Linux kernel vulnerability with a CVSS score of 5.6 out of 10. CVE-2023-1998 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2023-1998?

CVE-2023-1998 has a CVSS score of 5.6 out of 10, rated Medium severity. The vector string is CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N.

Is there a patch available for CVE-2023-1998?

No patch is currently available for CVE-2023-1998. Monitor the NIST NVD and your Linux distribution's security advisories for updates.

Is CVE-2023-1998 actively exploited?

CVE-2023-1998 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

CVE-2023-1998

Medium

The Linux kernel allows userspace processes to enable mitigations by calling prctl with PR_SET_SPECULATION_CTRL which disables the speculation feature as well as by using seccomp. We had noticed that on VMs of at least one major cloud provider, the kernel still left the victim process exposed to attacks in some cases even after enabling the spectre-BTI mitigation with prctl. The same behavior can be observed on a bare-metal machine when forcing the mitigation to IBRS on boot command line. This happened because when plain IBRS was enabled (not enhanced IBRS), the kernel had some logic that determined that STIBP was not needed. The IBRS bit implicitly protects against cross-thread branch target injection. However, with legacy IBRS, the IBRS bit was cleared on returning to userspace, due to performance reasons, which disabled the implicit STIBP and left userspace threads vulnerable to cross-thread branch target injection against which STIBP protects.

Package Linux Kernel

Published 2023-04-21

Last modified 2025-02-13

CVSS version 3.1

Patch available

Awaiting data

CVSS 3.1 score

5.6

out of 10

Medium

Attack Vector

Local

Attack Complexity

High

Privileges Required

Low

User Interaction

None

Scope

Changed

Confidentiality

High

Integrity

None

Availability

None

Vector string

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N

Weakness type

CWE-1303

CVE-2023-1998 is classified as CWE-1303

See CWE-1303 on MITRE CWE for full details on this weakness type.

References

The following references provide additional information about CVE-2023-1998 including vendor advisories, patch commits, exploit details, and third-party analysis. Links are sourced from the NIST NVD database.

GitHub
https://github.com/google/security-research/security/advisories/GHSA-mj4w-6495-6crx

Exploit Third Party Advisory
Kernel
https://kernel.dance/#6921ed9049bc7457f66c1596c5b78aec0dae4a9d

Not Applicable
Debian Security
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2023/05/msg00005.html

Mailing List Third Party Advisory
Debian Security
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2023/05/msg00006.html

Mailing List Third Party Advisory
Kernel patch commit
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/6921ed9049bc7457f66c1596c5b78aec0dae4a9d
Patch

Details

CVE ID CVE-2023-1998

Severity Medium

CVSS score 5.6 / 10

CVSS version 3.1

Published 2023-04-21

Modified 2025-02-13

KEV No

Patch Awaiting data

Package linux

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2023-1998?

CVE-2023-1998 is a Medium severity Linux kernel vulnerability with a CVSS score of 5.6 out of 10 . CVE-2023-1998 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
What is the CVSS score for CVE-2023-1998?

CVE-2023-1998 has a CVSS score of 5.6 out of 10, rated Medium severity (CVSS 3.1). The vector string is CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N.
Is there a patch available for CVE-2023-1998?

No patch is currently available for CVE-2023-1998. Monitor the NIST NVD and your Linux distribution's security advisories for updates.
Is CVE-2023-1998 actively exploited?

No — CVE-2023-1998 has not been confirmed as actively exploited. It is not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.