CVE-2023-52981

MEDIUMNVD 5.55.5
EchelonGraph scoreMEDIUM confidence

Score 5.5 from GitHub Security Advisory published 2025-03-27. NVD baseline CVSS 5.5; sources differ by 0.0.

Triggered by: GitHub Security Advisory CVSS
Sources: epss, ghsa, nvd
5.5
EchelonGraph verdictMonitorLow exploitation likelihood right now — keep watching.
  • Lower severity and no public exploit yet
CISA-KEV: Not listedEPSS: 0%CVSS: 5.5Exploit: NoneExposed: 0

A fix is available — apply it.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

drm/i915: Fix request ref counting during error capture & debugfs dump

When GuC support was added to error capture, the reference counting around the request object was broken. Fix it up.

The context based search manages the spinlocking around the search internally. So it needs to grab the reference count internally as well. The execlist only request based search relies on external locking, so it needs an external reference count but within the spinlock not outside it.

The only other caller of the context based search is the code for dumping engine state to debugfs. That code wasn't previously getting an explicit reference at all as it does everything while holding the execlist specific spinlock. So, that needs updaing as well as that spinlock doesn't help when using GuC submission. Rather than trying to conditionally get/put depending on submission model, just change it to always do the get/put.

v2: Explicitly document adding an extra blank line in some dense code (Andy Shevchenko). Fix multiple potential null pointer derefs in case of no request found (some spotted by Tvrtko, but there was more!). Also fix a leaked request in case of !started and another in __guc_reset_context now that intel_context_find_active_request is actually reference counting the returned request. v3: Add a _get suffix to intel_context_find_active_request now that it grabs a reference (Daniele). v4: Split the intel_guc_find_hung_context change to a separate patch and rename intel_context_find_active_request_get to intel_context_get_active_request (Tvrtko). v5: s/locking/reference counting/ in commit message (Tvrtko)

(cherry picked from commit 3700e353781e27f1bc7222f51f2cc36cbeb9b4ec)

CVSS v3
5.5
EG Score
5.5(medium)
EG Risk
29(Track)
EG Risk 29/100SSVC: Track

EG Risk is EchelonGraph's 0–100 priority score: it fuses intrinsic severity with real-world exploitation and automatability so you can rank equal-severity CVEs and fix the most dangerous first. Higher = act sooner. Distinct from the 0–10 EG Score (severity).

How it’s computed
Severity55% × 45%
Exploitation0% × 40%
Automatability30% × 15%
Action: Routine — remediate on your standard cadence.
EPSS
11.3%
KEV
Not listed

Published

March 27, 2025

Last Modified

October 28, 2025

Patch Availability(2)

Vendor / EcosystemFixed in / PatchReleasedSource
redhatkernel-0:4.18.0-513.5.1.el8_92023-11-14redhat
redhatkernel-0:5.14.0-362.8.1.el9_32023-11-07redhat

Patches are aggregated from vendor advisories (Red Hat, Microsoft, Cisco, GitHub) and package ecosystems (OSV, GHSA). Multiple rows for the same upstream release have been deduplicated.

Data Freshness Timeline

(refreshed 13× in last 7d / 47× in last 30d)

Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.

  1. 2026-07-23 02:29 UTCEG score recompute
  2. 2026-07-22 23:16 UTCEG score recompute
  3. 2026-07-22 14:07 UTCEPSS rescore
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  1. 2026-07-07 13:44 UTCEPSS rescore
  2. 2026-07-07 06:21 UTCOSV refresh
  3. 2026-07-06 16:26 UTCEPSS rescore
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  32. 2026-06-18 17:35 UTCOSV refresh
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  63. 2026-05-30 08:43 UTCEG score recompute
  64. 2026-05-30 08:43 UTCVendor advisory
  65. 2026-05-30 08:43 UTCGHSA enrichment
  66. 2026-05-29 21:50 UTCOSV refresh
  67. 2026-05-29 13:43 UTCEPSS rescore

Frequently asked(5)

What is CVE-2023-52981?
CVE-2023-52981 is a medium vulnerability published on March 27, 2025. In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm/i915: Fix request ref counting during error capture & debugfs dump When GuC support was added to error capture, the reference counting around the request object was broken. Fix it up. The context based search manages the…
When was CVE-2023-52981 disclosed?
CVE-2023-52981 was first published in the National Vulnerability Database on March 27, 2025, with the most recent update on October 28, 2025. EchelonGraph re-ingests CVE updates from NVD on a 2-hour cycle, so this page reflects the latest published state.
Is CVE-2023-52981 actively exploited?
CVE-2023-52981 is not currently on CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. FIRST EPSS estimates a 11.3% percentile likelihood of exploitation in the next 30 days — higher percentiles indicate greater predicted risk.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2023-52981?
CVE-2023-52981 has a CVSS v3 base score of 5.5 (NVD).
How do I remediate CVE-2023-52981?
Patch to the fixed version published by the affected vendor. Where vendor advisories exist for CVE-2023-52981, EchelonGraph cross-links them in the Vendor Advisories panel below — those typically contain the canonical remediation steps, fixed version numbers, and any vendor-specific mitigations.

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