CVE-2023-53631
Description
A reference leak flaw was found in the Linux kernel's Dell system management driver in the attribute duplicate detection logic. A local user on Dell systems can trigger this issue when the driver encounters duplicate sysfs attributes during initialization, causing a kobject reference to be acquired via kset_find_obj but never released. This results in a permanent reference leak that prevents proper cleanup and leads to resource exhaustion or denial of service.
Statement
The dell-sysman driver uses kset_find_obj to check for duplicate attributes in sysfs. When a duplicate is found, the function returns a reference to the existing kobject, incrementing its reference count. However, the driver fails to call kobject_put to release this reference, violating the kernel's reference counting rules. Over time or across multiple driver load/unload cycles, these leaked references accumulate, preventing proper object cleanup and potentially exhausting kernel resources. Triggering requires Dell hardware with the system management interface and conditions that create duplicate attributes, which may occur through specific BIOS configurations or repeated driver operations.
Mitigation
To mitigate this issue, prevent the dell_wmi_sysman module from being loaded. See https://access.redhat.com/solutions/41278 for instructions on blacklisting kernel modules.
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 5.5 | 5.5 | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Local | Local | N/A |
| Attack Complexity | Low | Low | N/A |
| Privileges Required | Low | Low | N/A |
| User Interaction | None | None | N/A |
| Scope | Unchanged | Unchanged | N/A |
| Confidentiality | None | None | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | None | None | N/A |
| Availability Impact | High | High | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory); DoS: Resource Consumption (Other)
An adversary that can cause a resource counter to become inaccurate may be able to create situations where resources are not accounted for and not released, thus causing resources to become scarce for future needs.
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart
An adversary that can cause a resource counter to become inaccurate may be able to force an error that causes the product to crash or exit out of its current operation.
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