CVE-2023-53178 | mm: fix zswap writeback race condition

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm: fix zswap writeback race condition The zswap writeback mechanism can cause a race condition resulting in memory corruption, where a swapped out page gets swapped in with data that was written to a different page. The race unfolds like this: 1. a page with data A and swap offset X is stored in zswap 2. page A is removed off the LRU by zpool driver for writeback in zswap-shrink work, data for A is mapped by zpool driver 3. user space program faults and invalidates page entry A, offset X is considered free 4. kswapd stores page B at offset X in zswap (zswap could also be full, if so, page B would then be IOed to X, then skip step 5.) 5. entry A is replaced by B in tree->rbroot, this doesn't affect the local reference held by zswap-shrink work 6. zswap-shrink work writes back A at X, and frees zswap entry A 7. swapin of slot X brings A in memory instead of B The fix: Once the swap page cache has been allocated (case ZSWAP_SWAPCACHE_NEW), zswap-shrink work just checks that the local zswap_entry reference is still the same as the one in the tree. If it's not the same it means that it's either been invalidated or replaced, in both cases the writeback is aborted because the local entry contains stale data. Reproducer: I originally found this by running `stress` overnight to validate my work on the zswap writeback mechanism, it manifested after hours on my test machine. The key to make it happen is having zswap writebacks, so whatever setup pumps /sys/kernel/debug/zswap/written_back_pages should do the trick. In order to reproduce this faster on a vm, I setup a system with ~100M of available memory and a 500M swap file, then running `stress --vm 1 --vm-bytes 300000000 --vm-stride 4000` makes it happen in matter of tens of minutes. One can speed things up even more by swinging /sys/module/zswap/parameters/max_pool_percent up and down between, say, 20 and 1; this makes it reproduce in tens of seconds. It's crucial to set `--vm-stride` to something other than 4096 otherwise `stress` won't realize that memory has been corrupted because all pages would have the same data.

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

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2023-53178 is rated Low Risk (19.7/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.02%). Mandatory action: Low composite risk—no urgent action required; patch on your normal maintenance cycle and revisit priority if CVSS or EPSS increases.

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-2023-53178

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-2023-53178

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
4.7 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/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:H)
Even with access, the exploit needs extra luck, timing, or a fussy environment to actually work.
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.
1.0 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-53178

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-53178

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2023-53178 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (linux), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 4, open 1. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2023-53178
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-53178
suse medium https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-53178/
ubuntu medium CVE-2023-53178 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 88, needed 75, not-affected 72. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-53178

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-53178

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
linux linux_kernel >= 3.11, < 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:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.4 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.4:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.4 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.4:rc2:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-53178

cvelogic Threat Intelligence