Vulnerability · Published Mar 27, 2025 · Assigned by Linux

CVE-2023-53011net: stmmac: enable all safety features by default

Medium 5.5

In plain English

A medium-severity null pointer dereference in Linux from Linux. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.2% (higher than 10% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.

Severity (CVSS 3.1)5.5Medium
Exploit odds (30 days)0.2%top 89.6% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo reportsCISA SSVC: none
Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known

Official description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: stmmac: enable all safety features by default In the original implementation of dwmac5 commit 8bf993a5877e ("net: stmmac: Add support for DWMAC5 and implement Safety Features") all safety features were enabled by default. Later it seems some implementations didn't have support for all the features, so in commit 5ac712dcdfef ("net: stmmac: enable platform specific safety features") the safety_feat_cfg structure was added to the callback and defined for some platforms to selectively enable these safety features. The problem is that only certain platforms were given that software support. If the automotive safety package bit is set in the hardware features register the safety feature callback is called for the platform, and for platforms that didn't get a safety_feat_cfg defined this results in the following NULL pointer dereference: [ 7.933303] Call trace: [ 7.935812] dwmac5_safety_feat_config+0x20/0x170 [stmmac] [ 7.941455] __stmmac_open+0x16c/0x474 [stmmac] [ 7.946117] stmmac_open+0x38/0x70 [stmmac] [ 7.950414] __dev_open+0x100/0x1dc [ 7.954006] __dev_change_flags+0x18c/0x204 [ 7.958297] dev_change_flags+0x24/0x6c [ 7.962237] do_setlink+0x2b8/0xfa4 [ 7.965827] __rtnl_newlink+0x4ec/0x840 [ 7.969766] rtnl_newlink+0x50/0x80 [ 7.973353] rtnetlink_rcv_msg+0x12c/0x374 [ 7.977557] netlink_rcv_skb+0x5c/0x130 [ 7.981500] rtnetlink_rcv+0x18/0x2c [ 7.985172] netlink_unicast+0x2e8/0x340 [ 7.989197] netlink_sendmsg+0x1a8/0x420 [ 7.993222] ____sys_sendmsg+0x218/0x280 [ 7.997249] ___sys_sendmsg+0xac/0x100 [ 8.001103] __sys_sendmsg+0x84/0xe0 [ 8.004776] __arm64_sys_sendmsg+0x24/0x30 [ 8.008983] invoke_syscall+0x48/0x114 [ 8.012840] el0_svc_common.constprop.0+0xcc/0xec [ 8.017665] do_el0_svc+0x38/0xb0 [ 8.021071] el0_svc+0x2c/0x84 [ 8.024212] el0t_64_sync_handler+0xf4/0x120 [ 8.028598] el0t_64_sync+0x190/0x194 Go back to the original behavior, if the automotive safety package is found to be supported in hardware enable all the features unless safety_feat_cfg is passed in saying this particular platform only supports a subset of the features.

Affected packages & fixed versions

EcosystemPackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian:12linux6.1.11-1DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53011
Debian:13linux6.1.11-1DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53011
Debian:14linux6.1.11-1DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux5.15.0-70.77UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-allwinner-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-aws5.15.0-1034.38UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-aws-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-aws-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-aws-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure5.15.0-1036.43UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-fde5.15.0-1036.43.1UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-fde-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-fde-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcp5.15.0-1032.40UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcp-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcp-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcp-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gke5.15.0-1031.36UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gkeop5.15.0-1018.23UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-hwe-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-hwe-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-hwe-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-ibm5.15.0-1028.31UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-intel-iotg5.15.0-1028.33UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-kvm5.15.0-1031.36UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency5.15.0-70.77UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia5.15.0-1023.23UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-5.17no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.0no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.1no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oracle5.15.0-1033.39UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oracle-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-raspi5.15.0-1027.29UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-raspi-realtimeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-realtimeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-realtimeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-riscvno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-riscv-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-riscv-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-starfive-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-starfive-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-starfive-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53011

Affected products (as reported)

VendorProductVersions
Linux Linux 5ac712dcdfefb1a783384db85e0507d161e87812 – before 120b8e527e07c65de7f2b9018dcd9d17e66f24275ac712dcdfefb1a783384db85e0507d161e87812 – before aebf7e62708ba706ee7bf484c9023b15c214e92a5ac712dcdfefb1a783384db85e0507d161e87812 – before fdfc76a116b5e9d3e98e6c96fe83b42d011d21d4
Linux Linux 5.14

Weakness: CWE-476 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

References