CVE-2023-53991
- Published: 2025-12-24T11:15:52.000
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
drm/msm/dpu: Disallow unallocated resources to be returned
In the event that the topology requests resources that have not been
created by the system (because they are typically not represented in
dpu_mdss_cfg ^1), the resource(s) in global_state (in this case DSC
blocks, until their allocation/assignment is being sanity-checked in
“drm/msm/dpu: Reject topologies for which no DSC blocks are available”)
remain NULL but will still be returned out of
dpu_rm_get_assigned_resources, where the caller expects to get an array
containing num_blks valid pointers (but instead gets these NULLs).
To prevent this from happening, where null-pointer dereferences
typically result in a hard-to-debug platform lockup, num_blks shouldn’t
increase past NULL blocks and will print an error and break instead.
After all, max_blks represents the static size of the maximum number of
blocks whereas the actual amount varies per platform.
^1: which can happen after a git rebase ended up moving additions to
_dpu_cfg to a different struct which has the same patch context.
Patchwork: https://patchwork.freedesktop.org/patch/517636/
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How to fix CVE-2023-53991
Description: In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm/msm/dpu: Disallow unallocated resources to be returned In the event that the topology requests resources that have not been created by the system (because they are typically not represented in dpu_mdss_cfg ^1), the resource(s) in global_state (in this case DSC blocks, until their allocation/assignment is […]
Exploit Difficulty: HARD
⏱️ Time to exploit: > 4 hours
🛠️ Required skills: Advanced security expertise
💰 Public exploits: Rare or not public
How to Fix:
- Check if you're running the affected product
- Update to the latest patched version
- If patching is not immediately possible: restrict network exposure, apply least-privilege access
- Test the fix in a staging environment first
- Review logs for signs of exploitation
- Monitor for IOCs (Indicators of Compromise)
- Enable automatic security updates
- Set up vulnerability monitoring
- Review and harden security configurations
Vendor Advisory: https://patchwork.freedesktop.org/patch/517636/
Exploit Difficulty Assessment
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