CVE-2023-53256

  • Published: 2025-09-15T15:15:52.980

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

firmware: arm_ffa: Fix FFA device names for logical partitions

Each physical partition can provide multiple services each with UUID.
Each such service can be presented as logical partition with a unique
combination of VM ID and UUID. The number of distinct UUID in a system
will be less than or equal to the number of logical partitions.

However, currently it fails to register more than one logical partition
or service within a physical partition as the device name contains only
VM ID while both VM ID and UUID are maintained in the partition information.
The kernel complains with the below message:

| sysfs: cannot create duplicate filename ‘/devices/arm-ffa-8001’
| CPU: 1 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/0 Not tainted 6.3.0-rc7 #8
| Hardware name: FVP Base RevC (DT)
| Call trace:
| dump_backtrace+0xf8/0x118
| show_stack+0x18/0x24
| dump_stack_lvl+0x50/0x68
| dump_stack+0x18/0x24
| sysfs_create_dir_ns+0xe0/0x13c
| kobject_add_internal+0x220/0x3d4
| kobject_add+0x94/0x100
| device_add+0x144/0x5d8
| device_register+0x20/0x30
| ffa_device_register+0x88/0xd8
| ffa_setup_partitions+0x108/0x1b8
| ffa_init+0x2ec/0x3a4
| do_one_initcall+0xcc/0x240
| do_initcall_level+0x8c/0xac
| do_initcalls+0x54/0x94
| do_basic_setup+0x1c/0x28
| kernel_init_freeable+0x100/0x16c
| kernel_init+0x20/0x1a0
| ret_from_fork+0x10/0x20
| kobject_add_internal failed for arm-ffa-8001 with -EEXIST, don’t try to
| register things with the same name in the same directory.
| arm_ffa arm-ffa: unable to register device arm-ffa-8001 err=-17
| ARM FF-A: ffa_setup_partitions: failed to register partition ID 0x8001

By virtue of being random enough to avoid collisions when generated in a
distributed system, there is no way to compress UUID keys to the number
of bits required to identify each. We can eliminate ‘-‘ in the name but
it is not worth eliminating 4 bytes and add unnecessary logic for doing
that. Also v1.0 doesn’t provide the UUID of the partitions which makes
it hard to use the same for the device name.

So to keep it simple, let us alloc an ID using ida_alloc() and append the
same to “arm-ffa” to make up a unique device name. Also stash the id value
in ffa_dev to help freeing the ID later when the device is destroyed.

Related CVE by CWE

No related CWE found.

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How to fix CVE-2023-53256

CVE-2023-53256 is a unknown severity vulnerability affecting the affected product.

Description: In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: firmware: arm_ffa: Fix FFA device names for logical partitions Each physical partition can provide multiple services each with UUID. Each such service can be presented as logical partition with a unique combination of VM ID and UUID. The number of distinct UUID in a system […]

Exploit Difficulty: HARD
⏱️ Time to exploit: > 4 hours
🛠️ Required skills: Advanced security expertise
💰 Public exploits: Rare or not public

How to Fix:

1 Identify affected systems

- Check if you're running the affected product

2 Immediate actions

- Update to the latest patched version
- If patching is not immediately possible: restrict network exposure, apply least-privilege access

3 Verification

- Test the fix in a staging environment first
- Review logs for signs of exploitation
- Monitor for IOCs (Indicators of Compromise)

4 Long-term prevention

- Enable automatic security updates
- Set up vulnerability monitoring
- Review and harden security configurations

Exploit Difficulty Assessment

HARD
⏱️ Time to Exploit: > 4 hours
🛠️ Skills Required: Advanced security expertise
💰 Public Exploits: Rare or not public

Vulnerability Timeline

Sep 15, 2025
Vulnerability Published

CVE details first published to NVD database

Nov 12, 2025
Imported to Database

Added to this CVE tracking system

Detection Rules & IOCs

No specific detection rules generated for this vulnerability type.

No vendor/product data available.