Kernel panic via misaligned RISC-V kprobe
Published Mar 27, 2025 · Updated May 11, 2026
Denial of service in affected Linux kernels on RISC-V allows local users to panic the kernel by registering a kprobe at an illegal position. The RISC-V arch_prepare_kprobe path installs an ebreak without first rejecting an address in the middle of an instruction, corrupting the original instruction stream. Reachability requires local access to kprobe_events on a RISC-V kernel with kprobes enabled; the demonstrated result is a kernel panic, not data access.
Summary
What happened
Denial of service in affected Linux kernels on RISC-V allows local users to panic the kernel by registering a kprobe at an illegal position. The RISC-V arch_prepare_kprobe path installs an ebreak without first rejecting an address in the middle of an instruction, corrupting the original instruction stream. Reachability requires local access to kprobe_events on a RISC-V kernel with kprobes enabled; the demonstrated result is a kernel panic, not data access.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2023-52978
- Published
- Mar 27, 2025
- Updated
- May 11, 2026
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- T1499.004
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Mar 27, 2025CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- May 11, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
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- Affected versionversion=5.12
- Affected versionversion=c22b0bcb1dd024cb9caad9230e3a387d8b061df5 <04a73558209554da17f46490ec4faaaf1b2bab68
- Affected versionversion=c22b0bcb1dd024cb9caad9230e3a387d8b061df5 <12316538b1d193064109ce1a28fc9bacd43950de
- Affected versionversion=c22b0bcb1dd024cb9caad9230e3a387d8b061df5 <87f48c7ccc73afc78630530d9af51f458f58cab8
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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