CVE-2023-53998

hwrng: virtio - Fix race on data_avail and actual data

State
Published
Severity
Not scored
Published
Dec 24, 2025
Updated
May 11, 2026
Reserved
Dec 24, 2025

Read the record on cve.org

Description

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

hwrng: virtio - Fix race on data_avail and actual data

The virtio rng device kicks off a new entropy request whenever the data available reaches zero. When a new request occurs at the end of a read operation, that is, when the result of that request is only needed by the next reader, then there is a race between the writing of the new data and the next reader.

This is because there is no synchronisation whatsoever between the writer and the reader.

Fix this by writing data_avail with smp_store_release and reading it with smp_load_acquire when we first enter read. The subsequent reads are safe because they're either protected by the first load acquire, or by the completion mechanism.

Also remove the redundant zeroing of data_idx in random_recv_done (data_idx must already be zero at this point) and data_avail in request_entropy (ditto).

Scores

The record has no CVSS score.

Weaknesses

The record names no weakness.

Affected Products

ProductVersions
LinuxLinux
  • f7f510ec195781c857ab76366a3e1c59e1caae42 to before 241ef15776a7c8505008db689175b320d345ecd3Affected
  • f7f510ec195781c857ab76366a3e1c59e1caae42 to before a43bcb0b661cbbf3ad797d2aee6b6fd06b8fc69dAffected
  • f7f510ec195781c857ab76366a3e1c59e1caae42 to before 77471e4912d3960dafe141e268c44be8024fe4dcAffected
  • f7f510ec195781c857ab76366a3e1c59e1caae42 to before c76d991b6f01a5d931e7053a73bc9524975a5215Affected
  • f7f510ec195781c857ab76366a3e1c59e1caae42 to before 22c30022cde6e2c88612b3a499223cfa912f1bc7Affected
  • f7f510ec195781c857ab76366a3e1c59e1caae42 to before 318657b4c2077289659f1cd9e2a34f6a3b208e3eAffected
  • f7f510ec195781c857ab76366a3e1c59e1caae42 to before 2fc91f156b3f3446a1bce80cf4adedcbf41271c2Affected
  • f7f510ec195781c857ab76366a3e1c59e1caae42 to before ac52578d6e8d300dd50f790f29a24169b1edd26cAffected
LinuxLinux
  • 2.6.26Affected
  • before 2.6.26Not affected
  • 4.19.291 through 4.19.*Not affected
  • 5.4.251 through 5.4.*Not affected
  • 5.10.188 through 5.10.*Not affected
  • 5.15.121 through 5.15.*Not affected
  • 6.1.39 through 6.1.*Not affected
  • 6.3.13 through 6.3.*Not affected
  • 6.4.4 through 6.4.*Not affected
  • 6.5 and laterNot affected

References

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