NULL pointer dereference in Linux

CVE-2023-53658

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: spi: bcm-qspi: return error if neither hif_mspi nor mspi is available If neither a "hif_mspi" nor "mspi" resource is present, the driver will just early exit in probe but still return success. Apart from not doing anything meaningful, this would then also lead to a null pointer access on removal, as platform_get_drvdata() would return NULL, which it would then try to dereference when trying to unregister the spi master. Fix this by unconditionally calling devm_ioremap_resource(), as it can handle a NULL res and will then return a viable ERR_PTR() if we get one. The "return 0;" was previously a "goto qspi_resource_err;" where then ret was returned, but since ret was still initialized to 0 at this place this was a valid conversion in 63c5395bb7a9 ("spi: bcm-qspi: Fix use-after-free on unbind"). The issue was not introduced by this commit, only made more obvious.

EPSS: 0.001 (3.9th 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:N/I:N/A:H.

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2023-53658?
CVE-2023-53658 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux, classified under NULL Pointer Dereference. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2025-10-07.
How severe is CVE-2023-53658?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.