CVE-2023-53087

CVE-2023-53087 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel with a CVSS 3.x base score of 5.5. It is not currently listed as actively exploited by CISA, and its EPSS exploit-prediction score is low.

Key facts

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm/i915/active: Fix misuse of non-idle barriers as fence trackers Users reported oopses on list corruptions when using i915 perf with a number of concurrently running graphics applications. Root cause analysis pointed at an issue in barrier processing code -- a race among perf open / close replacing active barriers with perf requests on kernel context and concurrent barrier preallocate / acquire operations performed during user context first pin / last unpin. When adding a request to a composite tracker, we try to reuse an existing fence tracker, already allocated and registered with that composite. The tracker we obtain may already track another fence, may be an idle barrier, or an active barrier. If the tracker we get occurs a non-idle barrier then we try to delete that barrier from a list of barrier tasks it belongs to. However, while doing that we don't respect return value from a function that performs the barrier deletion. Should the deletion ever fail, we would end up reusing the tracker still registered as a barrier task. Since the same structure field is reused with both fence callback lists and barrier tasks list, list corruptions would likely occur. Barriers are now deleted from a barrier tasks list by temporarily removing the list content, traversing that content with skip over the node to be deleted, then populating the list back with the modified content. Should that intentionally racy concurrent deletion attempts be not serialized, one or more of those may fail because of the list being temporary empty. Related code that ignores the results of barrier deletion was initially introduced in v5.4 by commit d8af05ff38ae ("drm/i915: Allow sharing the idle-barrier from other kernel requests"). However, all users of the barrier deletion routine were apparently serialized at that time, then the issue didn't exhibit itself. Results of git bisect with help of a newly developed igt@gem_barrier_race@remote-request IGT test indicate that list corruptions might start to appear after commit 311770173fac ("drm/i915/gt: Schedule request retirement when timeline idles"), introduced in v5.5. Respect results of barrier deletion attempts -- mark the barrier as idle only if successfully deleted from the list. Then, before proceeding with setting our fence as the one currently tracked, make sure that the tracker we've got is not a non-idle barrier. If that check fails then don't use that tracker but go back and try to acquire a new, usable one. v3: use unlikely() to document what outcome we expect (Andi), - fix bad grammar in commit description. v2: no code changes, - blame commit 311770173fac ("drm/i915/gt: Schedule request retirement when timeline idles"), v5.5, not commit d8af05ff38ae ("drm/i915: Allow sharing the idle-barrier from other kernel requests"), v5.4, - reword commit description. (cherry picked from commit 506006055769b10d1b2b4e22f636f3b45e0e9fc7)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2023-53087?
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm/i915/active: Fix misuse of non-idle barriers as fence trackers Users reported oopses on list corruptions when using i915 perf with a number of concurrently running graphics applications. Root cause analysis pointed at an issue in barrier processing code -- a race among perf open / close replacing active barriers with perf requests on kernel context and concurrent barrier preallocate / acquire operations performed during user context first pin / last unpin. When adding a request to a composite tracker, we try to reuse an existing fence tracker, already allocated and registered with that composite. The tracker we obtain may already track another fence, may be an idle barrier, or an active barrier. If the tracker we get occurs a non-idle barrier then we try to delete that barrier from a list of barrier tasks it belongs to. However, while doing that we don't respect return value from a function that performs the barrier deletion. Should the deletion ever fail, we would end up reusing the tracker still registered as a barrier task. Since the same structure field is reused with both fence callback lists and barrier tasks list, list corruptions would likely occur. Barriers are now deleted from a barrier tasks list by temporarily removing the list content, traversing that content with skip over the node to be deleted, then populating the list back with the modified content. Should that intentionally racy concurrent deletion attempts be not serialized, one or more of those may fail because of the list being temporary empty. Related code that ignores the results of barrier deletion was initially introduced in v5.4 by commit d8af05ff38ae ("drm/i915: Allow sharing the idle-barrier from other kernel requests"). However, all users of the barrier deletion routine were apparently serialized at that time, then the issue didn't exhibit itself. Results of git bisect with help of a newly developed igt@gem_barrier_race@remote-request IGT test indicate that list corruptions might start to appear after commit 311770173fac ("drm/i915/gt: Schedule request retirement when timeline idles"), introduced in v5.5. Respect results of barrier deletion attempts -- mark the barrier as idle only if successfully deleted from the list. Then, before proceeding with setting our fence as the one currently tracked, make sure that the tracker we've got is not a non-idle barrier. If that check fails then don't use that tracker but go back and try to acquire a new, usable one. v3: use unlikely() to document what outcome we expect (Andi), - fix bad grammar in commit description. v2: no code changes, - blame commit 311770173fac ("drm/i915/gt: Schedule request retirement when timeline idles"), v5.5, not commit d8af05ff38ae ("drm/i915: Allow sharing the idle-barrier from other kernel requests"), v5.4, - reword commit description. (cherry picked from commit 506006055769b10d1b2b4e22f636f3b45e0e9fc7)
How severe is CVE-2023-53087?
CVE-2023-53087 has a CVSS 3.x base score of 5.5, rated medium severity. It is exploitable over local access with low attack complexity, requires low privileges and no user interaction. Impact on confidentiality is none, integrity none, and availability high.
Is CVE-2023-53087 being actively exploited?
It is not currently listed in CISA's KEV catalog. Its EPSS exploit-prediction score is 0% (7th percentile), an estimate of the probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.
What products are affected by CVE-2023-53087?
CVE-2023-53087 primarily affects Linux Linux Kernel. In total, 3 product configurations (CPEs) are listed as vulnerable; see the affected-products list for the exact versions.
How do I fix CVE-2023-53087?
Review the linked vendor and NVD advisories for patched versions and mitigations, then upgrade or apply the recommended workaround.
Does CVE-2023-53087 have an EU (EUVD) identifier?
Yes. CVE-2023-53087 is tracked in the ENISA EU Vulnerability Database (EUVD) as EUVD-2025-13186.
When was CVE-2023-53087 published?
CVE-2023-53087 was published on 2025-05-02 and last updated on 2026-06-17.

References

Affected products (3)

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