CVE-2023-52836locking/ww_mutex/test: Fix potential workqueue corruption

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: locking/ww_mutex/test: Fix potential workqueue corruption In some cases running with the test-ww_mutex code, I was seeing odd behavior where sometimes it seemed flush_workqueue was returning before all the work threads were finished. Often this would cause strange crashes as the mutexes would be freed while they were being used. Looking at the code, there is a lifetime problem as the controlling thread that spawns the work allocates the "struct stress" structures that are passed to the workqueue threads. Then when the workqueue threads are finished, they free the stress struct that was passed to them. Unfortunately the workqueue work_struct node is in the stress struct. Which means the work_struct is freed before the work thread returns and while flush_workqueue is waiting. It seems like a better idea to have the controlling thread both allocate and free the stress structures, so that we can be sure we don't corrupt the workqueue by freeing the structure prematurely. So this patch reworks the test to do so, and with this change I no longer see the early flush_workqueue returns.

Timeline

Scores

EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)

0.26% · top 83% of all CVEs (13 Nov 2026)

CISA SSVC

Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial

The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 7.8.

Affected products

• Linux · Linux

  • affected 2a0c11282881875dc44f166a20eedf0d866dd0ef – < d4d37c9e6a4dbcca958dabd99216550525c7e389
  • affected 2a0c11282881875dc44f166a20eedf0d866dd0ef – < d8267cabbe1bed15ccf8b0e684c528bf8eeef715
  • affected 2a0c11282881875dc44f166a20eedf0d866dd0ef – < dcd85e3c929368076a7592b27f541e0da8b427f5
  • affected 2a0c11282881875dc44f166a20eedf0d866dd0ef – < 9ed2d68b3925145f5f51c46559484881d6082f75
  • affected 2a0c11282881875dc44f166a20eedf0d866dd0ef – < e89d0ed45a419c485bae999426ecf92697cbdda3
  • affected 2a0c11282881875dc44f166a20eedf0d866dd0ef – < c56df79d68677cf062da1b6e3b33e74299a92dfc
  • affected 2a0c11282881875dc44f166a20eedf0d866dd0ef – < e36407713163363e65566e7af0abe207d5f59a0c
  • affected 2a0c11282881875dc44f166a20eedf0d866dd0ef – < 304a2c4aad0fff887ce493e4197bf9cbaf394479
  • affected 2a0c11282881875dc44f166a20eedf0d866dd0ef – < bccdd808902f8c677317cec47c306e42b93b849e

• Linux · Linux

  • affected 4.11
  • unaffected < 4.11
  • unaffected 4.14.331 – ≤ 4.14.*
  • unaffected 4.19.300 – ≤ 4.19.*
  • unaffected 5.4.262 – ≤ 5.4.*
  • unaffected 5.10.202 – ≤ 5.10.*
  • unaffected 5.15.140 – ≤ 5.15.*
  • unaffected 6.1.64 – ≤ 6.1.*
  • unaffected 6.5.13 – ≤ 6.5.*
  • unaffected 6.6.3 – ≤ 6.6.*
  • unaffected 6.7 – ≤ *

Sources

The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.

• CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
• CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
• NVD (opens in a new tab)
• FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
• EUVD EUVD-2023-59550 (opens in a new tab)
• OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
• GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
• CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)

Badge for a README or a ticket

[![CVE-2023-52836](https://cveledger.app/badge/CVE-2023-52836.svg)](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2023-52836)

Record last updated 11 May 2026, 19:33 UTC.