CVE-2023-53176 | serial: 8250: Reinit port->pm on port specific driver unbind

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: serial: 8250: Reinit port->pm on port specific driver unbind When we unbind a serial port hardware specific 8250 driver, the generic serial8250 driver takes over the port. After that we see an oops about 10 seconds later. This can produce the following at least on some TI SoCs: Unhandled fault: imprecise external abort (0x1406) Internal error: : 1406 [#1] SMP ARM Turns out that we may still have the serial port hardware specific driver port->pm in use, and serial8250_pm() tries to call it after the port specific driver is gone: serial8250_pm [8250_base] from uart_change_pm+0x54/0x8c [serial_base] uart_change_pm [serial_base] from uart_hangup+0x154/0x198 [serial_base] uart_hangup [serial_base] from __tty_hangup.part.0+0x328/0x37c __tty_hangup.part.0 from disassociate_ctty+0x154/0x20c disassociate_ctty from do_exit+0x744/0xaac do_exit from do_group_exit+0x40/0x8c do_group_exit from __wake_up_parent+0x0/0x1c Let's fix the issue by calling serial8250_set_defaults() in serial8250_unregister_port(). This will set the port back to using the serial8250 default functions, and sets the port->pm to point to serial8250_pm.

Published: 2025-09-15 Last update: 2025-12-02 Assigner: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2023-53176 is rated Low Risk (23.8/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.02%). 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-2023-53176

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 2025-09-16 0.02%

Full EPSS history (1 record total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-53176

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/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:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
1.8 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-53176

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-53176

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2023-53176 not yet assigned 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-2023-53176
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-53176
suse medium https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-53176/
ubuntu medium CVE-2023-53176 medium priority: Ubuntu including 158 source packages (linux, linux-allwinner-5.19, …), 1414 status rows across 9 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 1017, ignored 162, released 138, not-affected 76, needed 20, needs-triage 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-53176

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-53176

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
linux linux_kernel < 4.14.316 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 4.15, < 4.19.284 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 4.20, < 5.4.244 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.5, < 5.10.181 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.11, < 5.15.113 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.16, < 6.1.30 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 6.2, < 6.3.4 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-53176

cvelogic Threat Intelligence