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VulnerabilityAwaiting classification

CVE-2023-54257

CRITICAL · 9.8 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-12-30
No fix yet
No fix has been published. The vendor has not shipped a fixed release or patch. You remain exposed.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: macb: fix a memory corruption in extended buffer descriptor mode For quite some time we were chasing a bug which looked like a sudden permanent failure of networking and mmc on some of our devices. The bug was very sensitive to any software changes and even more to any kernel debug options. Finally we got a setup where the problem was reproducible with CONFIG_DMA_API_DEBUG=y and it revealed the issue with the rx dma: [ 16.992082] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [ 16.996779] DMA-API: macb ff0b0000.ethernet: device driver tries to free DMA memory it has not allocated [device address=0x0000000875e3e244] [size=1536 bytes] [ 17.011049] WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 85 at kernel/dma/debug.c:1011 check_unmap+0x6a0/0x900 [ 17.018977] Modules linked in: xxxxx [ 17.038823] CPU: 0 PID: 85 Comm: irq/55-8000f000 Not tainted 5.4.0 #28 [ 17.045345] Hardware name: xxxxx [ 17.049528] pstate: 60000005 (nZCv daif -PAN -UAO) [ 17.054322] pc : check_unmap+0x6a0/0x900 [ 17.058243] lr : check_unmap+0x6a0/0x900 [ 17.062163] sp : ffffffc010003c40 [ 17.065470] x29: ffffffc010003c40 x28: 000000004000c03c [ 17.070783] x27: ffffffc010da7048 x26: ffffff8878e38800 [ 17.076095] x25: ffffff8879d22810 x24: ffffffc010003cc8 [ 17.081407] x23: 0000000000000000 x22: ffffffc010a08750 [ 17.086719] x21: ffffff8878e3c7c0 x20: ffffffc010acb000 [ 17.092032] x19: 0000000875e3e244 x18: 0000000000000010 [ 17.097343] x17: 0000000000000000 x16: 0000000000000000 [ 17.102647] x15: ffffff8879e4a988 x14: 0720072007200720 [ 17.107959] x13: 0720072007200720 x12: 0720072007200720 [ 17.113261] x11: 0720072007200720 x10: 0720072007200720 [ 17.118565] x9 : 0720072007200720 x8 : 000000000000022d [ 17.123869] x7 : 0000000000000015 x6 : 0000000000000098 [ 17.129173] x5 : 0000000000000000 x4 : 0000000000000000 [ 17.134475] x3 : 00000000ffffffff x2 : ffffffc010a1d370 [ 17.139778] x1 : b420c9d75d27bb00 x0 : 0000000000000000 [ 17.145082] Call trace: [ 17.147524] check_unmap+0x6a0/0x900 [ 17.151091] debug_dma_unmap_page+0x88/0x90 [ 17.155266] gem_rx+0x114/0x2f0 [ 17.158396] macb_poll+0x58/0x100 [ 17.161705] net_rx_action+0x118/0x400 [ 17.165445] __do_softirq+0x138/0x36c [ 17.169100] irq_exit+0x98/0xc0 [ 17.172234] __handle_domain_irq+0x64/0xc0 [ 17.176320] gic_handle_irq+0x5c/0xc0 [ 17.179974] el1_irq+0xb8/0x140 [ 17.183109] xiic_process+0x5c/0xe30 [ 17.186677] irq_thread_fn+0x28/0x90 [ 17.190244] irq_thread+0x208/0x2a0 [ 17.193724] kthread+0x130/0x140 [ 17.196945] ret_from_fork+0x10/0x20 [ 17.200510] ---[ end trace 7240980785f81d6f ]--- [ 237.021490] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [ 237.026129] DMA-API: exceeded 7 overlapping mappings of cacheline 0x0000000021d79e7b [ 237.033886] WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 0 at kernel/dma/debug.c:499 add_dma_entry+0x214/0x240 [ 237.041802] Modules linked in: xxxxx [ 237.061637] CPU: 0 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/0 Tainted: G W 5.4.0 #28 [ 237.068941] Hardware name: xxxxx [ 237.073116] pstate: 80000085 (Nzcv daIf -PAN -UAO) [ 237.077900] pc : add_dma_entry+0x214/0x240 [ 237.081986] lr : add_dma_entry+0x214/0x240 [ 237.086072] sp : ffffffc010003c30 [ 237.089379] x29: ffffffc010003c30 x28: ffffff8878a0be00 [ 237.094683] x27: 0000000000000180 x26: ffffff8878e387c0 [ 237.099987] x25: 0000000000000002 x24: 0000000000000000 [ 237.105290] x23: 000000000000003b x22: ffffffc010a0fa00 [ 237.110594] x21: 0000000021d79e7b x20: ffffffc010abe600 [ 237.115897] x19: 00000000ffffffef x18: 0000000000000010 [ 237.121201] x17: 0000000000000000 x16: 0000000000000000 [ 237.126504] x15: ffffffc010a0fdc8 x14: 0720072007200720 [ 237.131807] x13: 0720072007200720 x12: 0720072007200720 [ 237.137111] x11: 0720072007200720 x10: 0720072007200720 [ 237.142415] x9 : 0720072007200720 x8 : 0000000000000259 [ 237.147718] x7 : 0000000000000001 x6 : 0000000000000000 [ 237.15302 ---truncated---

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis

A detailed technical summary for this CVE is being prepared.

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
No vendor fix exists The vendor has not published a patch for this.

There is no version to upgrade to and no patch to apply. Every affected install stays exposed until the vendor ships a fix — or somebody else builds one.

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

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