Use After Free in Linux Kernel

CVE-2023-23586

Due to a vulnerability in the io_uring subsystem, it is possible to leak kernel memory information to the user process. timens_install calls current_is_single_threaded to determine if the current process is single-threaded, but this call does not consider io_uring's io_worker threads, thus it is possible to insert a time namespace's vvar page to process's memory space via a page fault. When this time namespace is destroyed, the vvar page is also freed, but not removed from the process' memory, and a next page allocated by the kernel will be still available from the user-space process and can leak memory contents via this (read-only) use-after-free vulnerability. We recommend upgrading past version 5.10.161 or commit  788d0824269bef539fe31a785b1517882eafed93 https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/io_uring

Vulnerability class: Use-After-Free

EPSS: 0.003 (19.0th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N.

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2023-23586?
CVE-2023-23586 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux Kernel, classified under Use After Free. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2023-02-17.
How severe is CVE-2023-23586?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.
Is CVE-2023-23586 known to be exploited?
1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.