CVE-2023-53536

Updated on 04 Oct 2025

Severity

7.8 High severity

Details

CVSS score
7.8
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Overview

About vulnerability

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

blk-crypto: make blk_crypto_evict_key() more robust

If blk_crypto_evict_key() sees that the key is still in-use (due to a bug) or that ->keyslot_evict failed, it currently just returns while leaving the key linked into the keyslot management structures.

However, blk_crypto_evict_key() is only called in contexts such as inode eviction where failure is not an option. So actually the caller proceeds with freeing the blk_crypto_key regardless of the return value of blk_crypto_evict_key().

These two assumptions don’t match, and the result is that there can be a use-after-free in blk_crypto_reprogram_all_keys() after one of these errors occurs. (Note, these errors shouldn’t happen; we’re just talking about what happens if they do anyway.)

Fix this by making blk_crypto_evict_key() unlink the key from the keyslot management structures even on failure.

Also improve some comments.

Details

Affected product:
AlmaLinux 9.2 ESU , TuxCare 9.6 ESU
Affected packages:
kernel @ 5.14.0 (+1 more)

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

blk-crypto: make blk_crypto_evict_key() more robust

If blk_crypto_evict_key() sees that the key is still in-use (due to a bug) or that ->keyslot_evict failed, it currently just returns while leaving the key linked into the keyslot management structures.

However, blk_crypto_evict_key() is only called in contexts such as inode eviction where failure is not an option. So actually the caller proceeds with freeing the blk_crypto_key regardless of the return value of blk_crypto_evict_key().

These two assumptions don’t match, and the result is that there can be a use-after-free in blk_crypto_reprogram_all_keys() after one of these errors occurs. (Note, these errors shouldn’t happen; we’re just talking about what happens if they do anyway.)

Fix this by making blk_crypto_evict_key() unlink the key from the keyslot management structures even on failure.

Also improve some comments.

Fixes