CVE-2023-54220 (GCVE-0-2023-54220)
Vulnerability from cvelistv5
Published
2025-12-30 12:11
Modified
2026-08-05 09:18
Severity ?
7.8 (High) - CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: serial: 8250: Fix oops for port->pm on uart_change_pm() Unloading a hardware specific 8250 driver can produce error "Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address" about ten seconds after unloading the driver. This happens on uart_hangup() calling uart_change_pm(). Turns out commit 04e82793f068 ("serial: 8250: Reinit port->pm on port specific driver unbind") was only a partial fix. If the hardware specific driver has initialized port->pm function, we need to clear port->pm too. Just reinitializing port->ops does not do this. Otherwise serial8250_pm() will call port->pm() instead of serial8250_do_pm().
References
Impacted products
Vendor Product Version
Linux Linux Version: 490bf37eaabb0a857ed1ae8e75d8854e41662f1c
Version: c9e080c3005fd183c56ff8f4d75edb5da0765d2c
Version: d5cd2928d31042a7c0a01464f9a8d95be736421d
Version: 2c86a1305c1406f45ea780d06953c484ea1d9e6e
Version: 1ba5594739d858e524ff0f398ee1ebfe0a8b9d41
Version: af4d6dbb1a92ea424ad1ba1d0c88c7fa2345d872
Version: 04e82793f068d2f0ffe62fcea03d007a8cdc16a7
Version: 04e82793f068d2f0ffe62fcea03d007a8cdc16a7
Version: 8e596aed5f2f98cf3e6e98d6fe1d689f4a319308
Version: 4.14.316   ≤
Version: 4.19.284   ≤
Version: 5.4.244   ≤
Version: 5.10.181   ≤
Version: 5.15.113   ≤
Version: 6.1.30   ≤
Version: 6.3.4   ≤
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{
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      "descriptions": [
        {
          "lang": "en",
          "value": "In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:\n\nserial: 8250: Fix oops for port-\u003epm on uart_change_pm()\n\nUnloading a hardware specific 8250 driver can produce error \"Unable to\nhandle kernel paging request at virtual address\" about ten seconds after\nunloading the driver. This happens on uart_hangup() calling\nuart_change_pm().\n\nTurns out commit 04e82793f068 (\"serial: 8250: Reinit port-\u003epm on port\nspecific driver unbind\") was only a partial fix. If the hardware specific\ndriver has initialized port-\u003epm function, we need to clear port-\u003epm too.\nJust reinitializing port-\u003eops does not do this. Otherwise serial8250_pm()\nwill call port-\u003epm() instead of serial8250_do_pm()."
        }
      ],
      "metrics": [
        {
          "cvssV3_1": {
            "baseScore": 7.8,
            "baseSeverity": "HIGH",
            "vectorString": "CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H",
            "version": "3.1"
          },
          "scenarios": [
            {
              "lang": "en",
              "value": "AV:L - The stale `port-\u003epm` call is reached through local tty operations (open/close/hangup on /dev/ttyS*) and the state is created via local sysfs unbind or module unload; there is no network- or physically-mediated path to the code.\nAC:L - There is no race and no memory-layout dependency \u2014 once the hardware-specific 8250 driver is unbound or unloaded, `port-\u003epm` is unconditionally stale and every subsequent `uart_change_pm()` transition dereferences it deterministically (the reporter saw it reliably ~10s later on the automatic hangup).\nPR:L - The dangling call is executed by unprivileged tty operations \u2014 an ordinary user with serial-device access (commonly granted via the dialout group on the embedded/industrial systems running 8250_omap/mtk/pxa/exar) opening or closing the port, or simply exiting a process holding it as controlling tty, is enough.\nUI:N - No victim action is needed; the kernel itself invokes `uart_hangup()` \u2192 `uart_change_pm()` on process exit and `uart_shutdown()` on close, so the stale pointer fires automatically.\nS:U - The stale function-pointer call and the resulting corruption stay within the kernel\u0027s own security authority; no VM, IOMMU, or sandbox boundary is crossed.\nC:H - This is a dangling function pointer into freed module text plus MMIO access through a released ioremap mapping \u2014 the same class as a use-after-free, which allows an attacker who reclaims the freed region to obtain arbitrary kernel-memory read.\nI:H - An indirect call through a freed code pointer is a direct control-flow hijack primitive, and `omap_8250_pm()`/`exar_pm()` additionally perform `serial_out()` writes through a dangling ioremap cookie, giving an uncontrolled kernel write.\nA:H - The commit documents the concrete result \u2014 \"Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address\" / \"Internal error: imprecise external abort\" \u2014 a kernel oops that kills the affected task and can panic the system."
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "providerMetadata": {
        "dateUpdated": "2026-08-05T09:18:10.284Z",
        "orgId": "416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67",
        "shortName": "Linux"
      },
      "references": [
        {
          "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/66f3e55960698c874b0598277913b478ecd29573"
        },
        {
          "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/720a297b334e85d34099e83d1f375b92c3efedd6"
        },
        {
          "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b653289ca6460a6552c8590b75dfa84a0140a46b"
        },
        {
          "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/bd70d0b28010d560a8be96b44fea86fe2ba016ae"
        },
        {
          "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/18e27df4f2b4e257c317ba8076f31a888f6cc64b"
        },
        {
          "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0c05493341d6f2097f75f0a5dbb7b53a9e8c5f6c"
        },
        {
          "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/375806616f8c772c33d40e112530887b37c1a816"
        },
        {
          "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/dfe2aeb226fd5e19b0ee795f4f6ed8bc494c1534"
        }
      ],
      "title": "serial: 8250: Fix oops for port-\u003epm on uart_change_pm()",
      "x_generator": {
        "engine": "bippy-1.2.0"
      }
    }
  },
  "cveMetadata": {
    "assignerOrgId": "416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67",
    "assignerShortName": "Linux",
    "cveId": "CVE-2023-54220",
    "datePublished": "2025-12-30T12:11:15.385Z",
    "dateReserved": "2025-12-30T12:06:44.501Z",
    "dateUpdated": "2026-08-05T09:18:10.284Z",
    "state": "PUBLISHED"
  },
  "dataType": "CVE_RECORD",
  "dataVersion": "5.2"
}


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