CVE-2023-53989

arm64: mm: fix VA-range sanity check

published December 24, 2025

CVSS
—
EPSS
0%
Percentile
10.3
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

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

arm64: mm: fix VA-range sanity check

Both create_mapping_noalloc() and update_mapping_prot() sanity-check

their 'virt' parameter, but the check itself doesn't make much sense.

The condition used today appears to be a historical accident.

The sanity-check condition:

if ((virt >= PAGE_END) && (virt < VMALLOC_START)) {

[ ... warning here ... ]

return;

}

... can only be true for the KASAN shadow region or the module region,

and there's no reason to exclude these specifically for creating and

updateing mappings.

When arm64 support was first upstreamed in commit:

c1cc1552616d0f35 ("arm64: MMU initialisation")

... the condition was:

if (virt < VMALLOC_START) {

[ ... warning here ... ]

return;

}

At the time, VMALLOC_START was the lowest kernel address, and this was

checking whether 'virt' would be translated via TTBR1.

Subsequently in commit:

14c127c957c1c607 ("arm64: mm: Flip kernel VA space")

... the condition was changed to:

if ((virt >= VA_START) && (virt < VMALLOC_START)) {

[ ... warning here ... ]

return;

}

This appear to have been a thinko. The commit moved the linear map to

the bottom of the kernel address space, with VMALLOC_START being at the

halfway point. The old condition would warn for changes to the linear

map below this, and at the time VA_START was the end of the linear map.

Subsequently we cleaned up the naming of VA_START in commit:

77ad4ce69321abbe ("arm64: memory: rename VA_START to PAGE_END")

... keeping the erroneous condition as:

if ((virt >= PAGE_END) && (virt < VMALLOC_START)) {

[ ... warning here ... ]

return;

}

Correct the condition to check against the start of the TTBR1 address

space, which is currently PAGE_OFFSET. This simplifies the logic, and

more clearly matches the "outside kernel range" message in the warning.

The record
Technical detail
CVSS
Not scored
CVSS v4.0
Not supplied
EPSS
0.00207 · 10.3th percentile
Published
2025-12-24T10:55Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 24 DEC 10:55Z
    arm64: mm: fix VA-range sanity check
    cvelistv5