What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2023-2235: Use-after-free in Linux kernel's Performance Events subsystem

• Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2023-05-01 · updated 2026-08-07
• Weakness: CWE-416

Description

A use-after-free vulnerability in the Linux Kernel Performance Events system can be exploited to achieve local privilege escalation. The perf_group_detach function did not check the event's siblings' attach_state before calling add_event_to_groups(), but remove_on_exec made it possible to call list_del_event() on before detaching from their group, making it possible to use a dangling pointer causing a use-after-free vulnerability. We recommend upgrading past commit fd0815f632c24878e325821943edccc7fde947a2.

Affected products

• Linux kernel: from 5.13 before 5.15.104; from 5.16 before 6.1.21; from 6.2 before 6.2.8 — fixed in 5.15.104, 6.1.21, 6.2.8

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 5.15.104, 6.1.21, 6.2.8. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=fd0815f632c24878e325821943edccc7fde947a2
• https://kernel.dance/fd0815f632c24878e325821943edccc7fde947a2
• https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=fd0815f632c24878e325821943edccc7fde947a2
• https://kernel.dance/fd0815f632c24878e325821943edccc7fde947a2
• https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20230609-0002/

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