What is CVE-2023-54242?

CVE-2023-54242 is a unscored severity Linux kernel vulnerability, affecting Linux kernel versions from 5.17 onward and patched in 6.1.30, 6.3.4 and 6.4. CVE-2023-54242 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2023-54242?

CVE-2023-54242 has a CVSS score of pending NVD analysis out of 10, rated awaiting scoring severity.

Is there a patch available for CVE-2023-54242?

Yes, CVE-2023-54242 has been patched. Fixed versions include 6.1.30, 6.3.4 and 6.4. If you are running Linux kernel 5.17 or later up to the fix versions, apply the relevant patch for your kernel branch.

Is CVE-2023-54242 actively exploited?

CVE-2023-54242 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

CVE-2023-54242

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: block, bfq: Fix division by zero error on zero wsum When the weighted sum is zero the calculation of limit causes a division by zero error. Fix this by continuing to the next level. This was discovered by running as root: stress-ng --ioprio 0 Fixes divison by error oops: [ 521.450556] divide error: 0000 [#1] SMP NOPTI [ 521.450766] CPU: 2 PID: 2684464 Comm: stress-ng-iopri Not tainted 6.2.1-1280.native #1 [ 521.451117] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.16.1-0-g3208b098f51a-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 [ 521.451627] RIP: 0010:bfqq_request_over_limit+0x207/0x400 [ 521.451875] Code: 01 48 8d 0c c8 74 0b 48 8b 82 98 00 00 00 48 8d 0c c8 8b 85 34 ff ff ff 48 89 ca 41 0f af 41 50 48 d1 ea 48 98 48 01 d0 31 d2 <48> f7 f1 41 39 41 48 89 85 34 ff ff ff 0f 8c 7b 01 00 00 49 8b 44 [ 521.452699] RSP: 0018:ffffb1af84eb3948 EFLAGS: 00010046 [ 521.452938] RAX: 000000000000003c RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: 0000000000000000 [ 521.453262] RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: ffffb1af84eb3978 [ 521.453584] RBP: ffffb1af84eb3a30 R08: 0000000000000001 R09: ffff8f88ab8a4ba0 [ 521.453905] R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000001 R12: ffff8f88ab8a4b18 [ 521.454224] R13: ffff8f8699093000 R14: 0000000000000001 R15: ffffb1af84eb3970 [ 521.454549] FS: 00005640b6b0b580(0000) GS:ffff8f88b3880000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [ 521.454912] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [ 521.455170] CR2: 00007ffcbcae4e38 CR3: 00000002e46de001 CR4: 0000000000770ee0 [ 521.455491] PKRU: 55555554 [ 521.455619] Call Trace: [ 521.455736] <TASK> [ 521.455837] ? bfq_request_merge+0x3a/0xc0 [ 521.456027] ? elv_merge+0x115/0x140 [ 521.456191] bfq_limit_depth+0xc8/0x240 [ 521.456366] __blk_mq_alloc_requests+0x21a/0x2c0 [ 521.456577] blk_mq_submit_bio+0x23c/0x6c0 [ 521.456766] __submit_bio+0xb8/0x140 [ 521.457236] submit_bio_noacct_nocheck+0x212/0x300 [ 521.457748] submit_bio_noacct+0x1a6/0x580 [ 521.458220] submit_bio+0x43/0x80 [ 521.458660] ext4_io_submit+0x23/0x80 [ 521.459116] ext4_do_writepages+0x40a/0xd00 [ 521.459596] ext4_writepages+0x65/0x100 [ 521.460050] do_writepages+0xb7/0x1c0 [ 521.460492] __filemap_fdatawrite_range+0xa6/0x100 [ 521.460979] file_write_and_wait_range+0xbf/0x140 [ 521.461452] ext4_sync_file+0x105/0x340 [ 521.461882] __x64_sys_fsync+0x67/0x100 [ 521.462305] ? syscall_exit_to_user_mode+0x2c/0x1c0 [ 521.462768] do_syscall_64+0x3b/0xc0 [ 521.463165] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x5a/0xc4 [ 521.463621] RIP: 0033:0x5640b6c56590 [ 521.464006] Code: 00 f7 d8 64 89 01 48 83 c8 ff c3 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 0f 1f 44 00 00 80 3d 71 70 0e 00 00 74 17 b8 4a 00 00 00 0f 05 <48> 3d 00 f0 ff ff 77 48 c3 0f 1f 80 00 00 00 00 48 83 ec 18 89 7c

Package Linux Kernel

Published 2025-12-30

Last modified 2026-04-15

Patch available

Yes

Affected versions

Linux kernel versions 5.17 and later are affected. Fixed in 6.1.30, 6.3.4, 6.4 and their respective stable series.

Affected from

≥ 5.17

Fixed in

✓ 6.1.30 6.1.x ✓ 6.3.4 6.3.x ✓ 6.4

References

The following references provide additional information about CVE-2023-54242 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/1655cfc85250a224b0d9486c8136baeea33b9b5c
Patch
Kernel patch commit
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c0346a59d719461248c6dc6f21c9e55ef836b66f
Patch
Kernel patch commit
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e53413f8deedf738a6782cc14cc00bd5852ccf18
Patch

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2023-54242?

CVE-2023-54242 is a unscored severity Linux kernel vulnerability . It affects Linux kernel versions from 5.17 onward and has been patched in 6.1.30, 6.3.4 and 6.4. CVE-2023-54242 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
Is there a patch available for CVE-2023-54242?

Yes — CVE-2023-54242 has been patched. Fixed versions include 6.1.30, 6.3.4 and 6.4. If you are running Linux kernel 5.17 or later up to the fix versions, apply the relevant patch for your kernel branch.
Is CVE-2023-54242 actively exploited?

No — CVE-2023-54242 has not been confirmed as actively exploited. It is not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.