CVE-2023-53171

vfio/type1: prevent underflow of locked_vm via exec()

published September 15, 2025

CVSS
—
EPSS
0%
Percentile
4.7
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

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

vfio/type1: prevent underflow of locked_vm via exec()

When a vfio container is preserved across exec, the task does not change,

but it gets a new mm with locked_vm=0, and loses the count from existing

dma mappings. If the user later unmaps a dma mapping, locked_vm underflows

to a large unsigned value, and a subsequent dma map request fails with

ENOMEM in __account_locked_vm.

To avoid underflow, grab and save the mm at the time a dma is mapped.

Use that mm when adjusting locked_vm, rather than re-acquiring the saved

task's mm, which may have changed. If the saved mm is dead, do nothing.

locked_vm is incremented for existing mappings in a subsequent patch.

The record
Technical detail
CVSS
Not scored
CVSS v4.0
Not supplied
EPSS
0.00159 · 4.7th percentile
Published
2025-09-15T14:04Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 15 SEP 14:04Z
    vfio/type1: prevent underflow of locked_vm via exec()
    cvelistv5