What is CVE-2023-53172?

CVE-2023-53172 is a Medium severity Linux kernel vulnerability with a CVSS score of 5.5 out of 10, affecting Linux kernel versions from 6.3 onward and patched in 6.3.1 and 6.4. CVE-2023-53172 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2023-53172?

CVE-2023-53172 has a CVSS score of 5.5 out of 10, rated Medium severity. The vector string is CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

Is there a patch available for CVE-2023-53172?

Yes, CVE-2023-53172 has been patched. Fixed versions include 6.3.1 and 6.4. If you are running Linux kernel 6.3 or later up to the fix versions, apply the relevant patch for your kernel branch.

Is CVE-2023-53172 actively exploited?

CVE-2023-53172 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

CVE-2023-53172

Medium

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: fsverity: reject FS_IOC_ENABLE_VERITY on mode 3 fds Commit 56124d6c87fd ("fsverity: support enabling with tree block size < PAGE_SIZE") changed FS_IOC_ENABLE_VERITY to use __kernel_read() to read the file's data, instead of direct pagecache accesses. An unintended consequence of this is that the 'WARN_ON_ONCE(!(file->f_mode & FMODE_READ))' in __kernel_read() became reachable by fuzz tests. This happens if FS_IOC_ENABLE_VERITY is called on a fd opened with access mode 3, which means "ioctl access only". Arguably, FS_IOC_ENABLE_VERITY should work on ioctl-only fds. But ioctl-only fds are a weird Linux extension that is rarely used and that few people even know about. (The documentation for FS_IOC_ENABLE_VERITY even specifically says it requires O_RDONLY.) It's probably not worthwhile to make the ioctl internally open a new fd just to handle this case. Thus, just reject the ioctl on such fds for now.

Package Linux Kernel

Published 2025-09-15

Last modified 2025-12-02

CVSS version 3.1

Patch available

Yes

CVSS 3.1 score

5.5

out of 10

Medium

Attack Vector

Local

Attack Complexity

Low

Privileges Required

Low

User Interaction

None

Scope

Unchanged

Confidentiality

Low

Integrity

None

Availability

High

Vector string

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

Affected versions

Linux kernel versions 6.3 and later are affected. Fixed in 6.3.1, 6.4 and their respective stable series.

Affected from

≥ 6.3

Fixed in

✓ 6.3.1 6.3.x ✓ 6.4

References

The following references provide additional information about CVE-2023-53172 including vendor advisories, patch commits, exploit details, and third-party analysis. Links are sourced from the NIST NVD database.

Kernel patch commit
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/04839139213cf60d4c5fc792214a08830e294ff8
Patch
Kernel patch commit
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/85c039cff3c359967cafe90443c02321e950b216
Patch

Details

CVE ID CVE-2023-53172

Severity Medium

CVSS score 5.5 / 10

CVSS version 3.1

Published 2025-09-15

Modified 2025-12-02

KEV No

Patch

Yes

Package linux

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2023-53172?

CVE-2023-53172 is a Medium severity Linux kernel vulnerability with a CVSS score of 5.5 out of 10 . It affects Linux kernel versions from 6.3 onward and has been patched in 6.3.1 and 6.4. CVE-2023-53172 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
What is the CVSS score for CVE-2023-53172?

CVE-2023-53172 has a CVSS score of 5.5 out of 10, rated Medium severity (CVSS 3.1). The vector string is CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.
Is there a patch available for CVE-2023-53172?

Yes — CVE-2023-53172 has been patched. Fixed versions include 6.3.1 and 6.4. If you are running Linux kernel 6.3 or later up to the fix versions, apply the relevant patch for your kernel branch.
Is CVE-2023-53172 actively exploited?

No — CVE-2023-53172 has not been confirmed as actively exploited. It is not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.