Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
CVE-2023-52932 is a Linux kernel availability bug in swap allocation. A local user can trigger heavy memory pressure that may cause a CPU soft lockup, making affected systems unresponsive. It is not described as exposing or modifying data. The supplied CVSS score is 5.5, and KEV status is false.
Executive priority
Treat as a moderate operational resilience issue. It can affect service availability on vulnerable Linux hosts, but the provided evidence requires local access and does not show data theft, data tampering, or active exploitation.
Technical view
The flaw is in get_swap_pages() in mm/swapfile. Under memory pressure, loops searching swap space may run tens of thousands of times without rescheduling, causing soft lockups. The kernel fix adds cond_resched() when available space is not found.
Likely exposure
Exposure is most relevant to Linux systems using affected kernel versions, especially hosts with swap or zram under heavy memory pressure. The CVSS vector requires local access with low privileges and has high availability impact only.
Exploitation context
The source bundle does not show active exploitation, and KEV is false. The described trigger is local memory pressure causing frequent OOM conditions and swap scanning. No remote attack path is identified in the provided sources.
Researcher notes
CWE-667 is listed. The vulnerable behavior is scheduler starvation during swap page allocation, not a memory corruption issue. Affected-version data in the bundle includes both kernel version lines and commit hashes, so verify against distro backports rather than version strings alone.
Mitigation direction
- Update affected Linux kernels to versions containing the referenced stable fixes.
- Follow distribution or kernel vendor guidance for exact package versions.
- Prioritize shared servers where local users or workloads can exhaust memory.
- Monitor for soft lockup and repeated OOM events until patched.
Validation and detection
- Inventory Linux kernel versions across servers and images.
- Check whether vendor kernels include one of the referenced stable fixes.
- Review affected hosts for swap, zram, and memory-pressure-heavy workloads.
- Confirm no reliance on KEV for prioritization; KEV is false in the bundle.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CWE-667: Exact CWE lookup
Use the exact CWE identifier as the starting point before reviewing related ATT&CK behavior. Open the exact CWE lookup page first, then review the ATT&CK searches from that MITRE weakness context. This is a Glexia lookup hint, not an official ATT&CK mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2023-52932 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- Medium
- CVSS
- 5.5 (3.1)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
SSVC decision data
CVSS vector scores
1 official scoreWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H1.83.6CISA-ADPVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 3.1 score
5.5MediumVector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Vulnerability timeline
Timeline events are normalized from CVE metadata, CNA source timelines, ADP timelines, and KEV metadata when present.
- CVE reservedCVE Program
The CVE ID was reserved by the assigning CNA.
- CVE publishedCVE Program
The CVE record was published.
- CVE updatedCVE Program
The CVE record metadata indicates this as the latest update time.
ADP provider summaries
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/29f0349c5c76b627fe06b87d4b13fa03a6ce8e64CVE reference, Linux
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/387217b97e99699c34e6d95ce2b91b327fcd853eCVE reference, Linux
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d49c85a1913385eed46dd16a25ad0928253767f0CVE reference, Linux
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/30187be29052bba9203b0ae2bdd815e0bc2faaabCVE reference, Linux
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5dbe1ebd56470d03b78fc31491a9e4d433106ef2CVE reference, Linux
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/49178d4d61e78aed8c837dfeea8a450700f196e2CVE reference, Linux
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7717fc1a12f88701573f9ed897cc4f6699c661e3CVE reference, Linux
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.
Improper Locking
Improper Locking represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.