Vulnerability · Published Sep 17, 2025 · Assigned by Linux

CVE-2023-53366block: be a bit more careful in checking for NULL bdev while polling

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 9% 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 91.2% 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: block: be a bit more careful in checking for NULL bdev while polling Wei reports a crash with an application using polled IO: PGD 14265e067 P4D 14265e067 PUD 47ec50067 PMD 0 Oops: 0000 [#1] SMP CPU: 0 PID: 21915 Comm: iocore_0 Kdump: loaded Tainted: G S 5.12.0-0_fbk12_clang_7346_g1bb6f2e7058f #1 Hardware name: Wiwynn Delta Lake MP T8/Delta Lake-Class2, BIOS Y3DLM08 04/10/2022 RIP: 0010:bio_poll+0x25/0x200 Code: 0f 1f 44 00 00 0f 1f 44 00 00 55 41 57 41 56 41 55 41 54 53 48 83 ec 28 65 48 8b 04 25 28 00 00 00 48 89 44 24 20 48 8b 47 08 <48> 8b 80 70 02 00 00 4c 8b 70 50 8b 6f 34 31 db 83 fd ff 75 25 65 RSP: 0018:ffffc90005fafdf8 EFLAGS: 00010292 RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: 74b43cd65dd66600 RDX: 0000000000000003 RSI: ffffc90005fafe78 RDI: ffff8884b614e140 RBP: ffff88849964df78 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000008 R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: ffff88849964df00 R13: ffffc90005fafe78 R14: ffff888137d3c378 R15: 0000000000000001 FS: 00007fd195000640(0000) GS:ffff88903f400000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 0000000000000270 CR3: 0000000466121001 CR4: 00000000007706f0 DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 PKRU: 55555554 Call Trace: iocb_bio_iopoll+0x1d/0x30 io_do_iopoll+0xac/0x250 __se_sys_io_uring_enter+0x3c5/0x5a0 ? __x64_sys_write+0x89/0xd0 do_syscall_64+0x2d/0x40 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xae RIP: 0033:0x94f225d Code: 24 cc 00 00 00 41 8b 84 24 d0 00 00 00 c1 e0 04 83 e0 10 41 09 c2 8b 33 8b 53 04 4c 8b 43 18 4c 63 4b 0c b8 aa 01 00 00 0f 05 <85> c0 0f 88 85 00 00 00 29 03 45 84 f6 0f 84 88 00 00 00 41 f6 c7 RSP: 002b:00007fd194ffcd88 EFLAGS: 00000202 ORIG_RAX: 00000000000001aa RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 00007fd194ffcdc0 RCX: 00000000094f225d RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: 0000000000000007 RBP: 00007fd194ffcdb0 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000008 R10: 0000000000000001 R11: 0000000000000202 R12: 00007fd269d68030 R13: 0000000000000000 R14: 0000000000000001 R15: 0000000000000000 which is due to bio->bi_bdev being NULL. This can happen if we have two tasks doing polled IO, and task B ends up completing IO from task A if they are sharing a poll queue. If task B completes the IO and puts the bio into our cache, then it can allocate that bio again before task A is done polling for it. As that would necessitate a preempt between the two tasks, it's enough to just be a bit more careful in checking for whether or not bio->bi_bdev is NULL.

Affected packages & fixed versions

EcosystemPackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian:12linux6.1.20-1DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53366
Debian:13linux6.1.20-1DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53366
Debian:14linux6.1.20-1DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinuxno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-allwinner-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-awsno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-aws-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-aws-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-aws-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azureno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-azure-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-fdeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-fde-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-fde-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcpno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcp-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-gcp-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcp-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcp-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gkeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gkeopno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-hwe-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-hwe-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-hwe-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-hwe-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-ibmno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-intelno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-intel-iot-realtimeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-intel-iotgno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-kvmno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatencyno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidiano fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-tegrano fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-tegra-igxno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-5.17no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.0no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.1no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.8no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oracleno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oracle-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-raspino fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-raspi-realtimeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-realtimeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-realtimeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-riscvno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-riscvno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-riscv-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-riscv-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-starfive-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-starfive-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-starfive-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-xilinx-zynqmpno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53366

Affected products (as reported)

VendorProductVersions
Linux Linux be4d234d7aebbfe0c233bc20b9cdef7ab3408ff4 – before 1af0bdca03f367874da45d6cbe05fa05b90b1439be4d234d7aebbfe0c233bc20b9cdef7ab3408ff4 – before 0510d5e654d05053ed0e6309a9b42043ac9903abbe4d234d7aebbfe0c233bc20b9cdef7ab3408ff4 – before 310726c33ad76cebdee312dbfafc12c1b44bf977
Linux Linux 5.15

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

References