CVE-2023-53123 | PCI: s390: Fix use-after-free of PCI resources with per-function hotplug

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: PCI: s390: Fix use-after-free of PCI resources with per-function hotplug On s390 PCI functions may be hotplugged individually even when they belong to a multi-function device. In particular on an SR-IOV device VFs may be removed and later re-added. In commit a50297cf8235 ("s390/pci: separate zbus creation from scanning") it was missed however that struct pci_bus and struct zpci_bus's resource list retained a reference to the PCI functions MMIO resources even though those resources are released and freed on hot-unplug. These stale resources may subsequently be claimed when the PCI function re-appears resulting in use-after-free. One idea of fixing this use-after-free in s390 specific code that was investigated was to simply keep resources around from the moment a PCI function first appeared until the whole virtual PCI bus created for a multi-function device disappears. The problem with this however is that due to the requirement of artificial MMIO addreesses (address cookies) extra logic is then needed to keep the address cookies compatible on re-plug. At the same time the MMIO resources semantically belong to the PCI function so tying their lifecycle to the function seems more logical. Instead a simpler approach is to remove the resources of an individually hot-unplugged PCI function from the PCI bus's resource list while keeping the resources of other PCI functions on the PCI bus untouched. This is done by introducing pci_bus_remove_resource() to remove an individual resource. Similarly the resource also needs to be removed from the struct zpci_bus's resource list. It turns out however, that there is really no need to add the MMIO resources to the struct zpci_bus's resource list at all and instead we can simply use the zpci_bar_struct's resource pointer directly.

Published: 2025-05-02 Last update: 2025-11-10 Assigner: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2023-53123 is rated Low Risk (39.5/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.08%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2023-53123

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-02-26 0.02% 0.08% +0.06%
2 2025-05-03 0.02%

Full EPSS history (2 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-53123

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.8 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
1.8 5.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-53123

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-53123

vendor priority summary link
debian unimportant CVE-2023-53123 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (linux), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2023-53123
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-53123
suse medium https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-53123/
ubuntu low CVE-2023-53123 low priority: Ubuntu including 158 source packages (linux, linux-allwinner-5.19, …), 1551 status rows across 10 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 1145, ignored 146, not-affected 139, released 120, needs-triage 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-53123

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-53123

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
linux linux_kernel >= 5.13, < 5.15.104 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.16, < 6.1.21 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 6.2, < 6.2.8 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.3 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.3:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.3 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.3:rc2:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-53123

cvelogic Threat Intelligence