CVE-2023-54198
- Published: 2025-12-30T13:16:07.877
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
tty: fix out-of-bounds access in tty_driver_lookup_tty()
When specifying an invalid console= device like console=tty3270,
tty_driver_lookup_tty() returns the tty struct without checking
whether index is a valid number.
To reproduce:
qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -nographic -serial mon:stdio
-kernel ../linux-build-x86/arch/x86/boot/bzImage
-append “console=ttyS0 console=tty3270”
This crashes with:
[ 0.770599] BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 00000000000000ef
[ 0.771265] #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode
[ 0.771773] #PF: error_code(0x0000) – not-present page
[ 0.772609] Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP PTI
[ 0.774878] RIP: 0010:tty_open+0x268/0x6f0
[ 0.784013] chrdev_open+0xbd/0x230
[ 0.784444] ? cdev_device_add+0x80/0x80
[ 0.784920] do_dentry_open+0x1e0/0x410
[ 0.785389] path_openat+0xca9/0x1050
[ 0.785813] do_filp_open+0xaa/0x150
[ 0.786240] file_open_name+0x133/0x1b0
[ 0.786746] filp_open+0x27/0x50
[ 0.787244] console_on_rootfs+0x14/0x4d
[ 0.787800] kernel_init_freeable+0x1e4/0x20d
[ 0.788383] ? rest_init+0xc0/0xc0
[ 0.788881] kernel_init+0x11/0x120
[ 0.789356] ret_from_fork+0x22/0x30
Related CVE by CWE
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How to fix CVE-2023-54198
Description: In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: tty: fix out-of-bounds access in tty_driver_lookup_tty() When specifying an invalid console= device like console=tty3270, tty_driver_lookup_tty() returns the tty struct without checking whether index is a valid number. To reproduce: qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -nographic -serial mon:stdio -kernel ../linux-build-x86/arch/x86/boot/bzImage -append “console=ttyS0 console=tty3270” This crashes with: [ 0.770599] BUG: […]
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
Exploit Difficulty Assessment
Vulnerability Timeline
CVE details first published to NVD database
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No vendor/product data available.