CVE-2023-52779: Linux Kernel

Medium severity, CVSS 5.5. EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: fs: Pass AT_GETATTR_NOSEC flag to getattr interface function When vfs_getattr_nosec() calls a filesystem's getattr interface function then the 'nosec' should propagate into this function so that vfs_getattr_nosec() can again be called from the filesystem's gettattr rather than vfs_getattr(). The latter would add unnecessary security checks that the initial vfs_getattr_nosec() call wanted to avoid. Therefore, introduce the getattr flag GETATTR_NOSEC and allow to pass with the new getattr_flags parameter to the getattr interface function. In overlayfs and ecryptfs use this flag to determine which one of the two functions to call. In a recent code change introduced to IMA vfs_getattr_nosec() ended up calling vfs_getattr() in overlayfs, which in turn called security_inode_getattr() on an exiting process that did not have current->fs set anymore, which then caused a kernel NULL pointer dereference. With this change the call to security_inode_getattr() can be avoided, thus avoiding the NULL pointer dereference.

Affected products

• Linux Linux Kernel: from 6.5, before 6.6.4 (fixed in 6.6.4); version 6.7 only

Published 2024-05-21. Last modified 2026-06-17.