CVE-2023-53438

Medium

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: x86/MCE: Always save CS register on AMD Zen IF Poison errors The Instruction Fetch (IF) units on current AMD Zen-based systems do not guarantee a synchronous #MC is delivered for poison consumption errors. Therefore, MCG_STATUS[EIPV|RIPV] will not be set. However, the microarchitecture does guarantee that the exception is delivered within the same context. In other words, the exact rIP is not known, but the context is known to not have changed. There is no architecturally-defined method to determine this behavior. The Code Segment (CS) register is always valid on such IF unit poison errors regardless of the value of MCG_STATUS[EIPV|RIPV]. Add a quirk to save the CS register for poison consumption from the IF unit banks. This is needed to properly determine the context of the error. Otherwise, the severity grading function will assume the context is IN_KERNEL due to the m->cs value being 0 (the initialized value). This leads to unnecessary kernel panics on data poison errors due to the kernel believing the poison consumption occurred in kernel context.

SeverityMedium
CVSS5.5
Exploit probability—
ProductLinux Kernel
PublishedSep 18, 2025
First seenSep 18, 2025

How to fix

Update
  • linux linux_kernel6.1.53, 6.4.16, 6.5.3 or later

Affected products

ProductAffected versionsFixed in
linux linux_kernelv < 6.1.53, 6.2 ≤ v < 6.4.16, 6.5 ≤ v < 6.5.36.1.53, 6.4.16, 6.5.3

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