How should we interpret CVSS severity scores?

CVSS estimates technical severity, but it does not automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, asset criticality, known exploitation, and whether compensating controls exist. A Medium CVSS on an exposed production system can be more urgent than a Critical on an isolated non-production host.

Vulnerability Database

Q: What is a Vulnerability (CVE) and why does it matter?

A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

Q: What's the difference between a vulnerability, an exploit, and a zero-day?

A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. Risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.

Q: Why do vulnerabilities keep reappearing in our environment?

Recurring findings usually come from incomplete asset discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host.

Q: How do we prioritize remediation without burning out the team?

Use a repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress so remediation is steady, not reactive.

Q: How can SynScan help reduce vulnerability risk over time?

SynScan combines attack surface monitoring and continuous security auditing to keep your inventory current, flag high-impact vulnerabilities early, and help you turn raw findings into a practical remediation plan.

374,587

Total vulnerabilities in the database

CVE-2023-53563 — linux / linux_kernel

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

cpufreq: amd-pstate-ut: Fix kernel panic when loading the driver

After loading the amd-pstate-ut driver, amd_pstate_ut_check_perf() and amd_pstate_ut_check_freq() use cpufreq_cpu_get() to get the policy of the CPU and mark it as busy.

In these functions, cpufreq_cpu_put() should be used to release the policy, but it is not, so any other entity trying to access the policy is blocked indefinitely.

One such scenario is when amd_pstate mode is changed, leading to the following splat:

[ 1332.103727] INFO: task bash:2929 blocked for more than 120 seconds. [ 1332.110001] Not tainted 6.5.0-rc2-amd-pstate-ut #5 [ 1332.115315] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. [ 1332.123140] task:bash state:D stack:0 pid:2929 ppid:2873 flags:0x00004006 [ 1332.123143] Call Trace: [ 1332.123145] <TASK> [ 1332.123148] __schedule+0x3c1/0x16a0 [ 1332.123154] ? _raw_read_lock_irqsave+0x2d/0x70 [ 1332.123157] schedule+0x6f/0x110 [ 1332.123160] schedule_timeout+0x14f/0x160 [ 1332.123162] ? preempt_count_add+0x86/0xd0 [ 1332.123165] __wait_for_common+0x92/0x190 [ 1332.123168] ? __pfx_schedule_timeout+0x10/0x10 [ 1332.123170] wait_for_completion+0x28/0x30 [ 1332.123173] cpufreq_policy_put_kobj+0x4d/0x90 [ 1332.123177] cpufreq_policy_free+0x157/0x1d0 [ 1332.123178] ? preempt_count_add+0x58/0xd0 [ 1332.123180] cpufreq_remove_dev+0xb6/0x100 [ 1332.123182] subsys_interface_unregister+0x114/0x120 [ 1332.123185] ? preempt_count_add+0x58/0xd0 [ 1332.123187] ? __pfx_amd_pstate_change_driver_mode+0x10/0x10 [ 1332.123190] cpufreq_unregister_driver+0x3b/0xd0 [ 1332.123192] amd_pstate_change_driver_mode+0x1e/0x50 [ 1332.123194] store_status+0xe9/0x180 [ 1332.123197] dev_attr_store+0x1b/0x30 [ 1332.123199] sysfs_kf_write+0x42/0x50 [ 1332.123202] kernfs_fop_write_iter+0x143/0x1d0 [ 1332.123204] vfs_write+0x2df/0x400 [ 1332.123208] ksys_write+0x6b/0xf0 [ 1332.123210] __x64_sys_write+0x1d/0x30 [ 1332.123213] do_syscall_64+0x60/0x90 [ 1332.123216] ? fpregs_assert_state_consistent+0x2e/0x50 [ 1332.123219] ? exit_to_user_mode_prepare+0x49/0x1a0 [ 1332.123223] ? irqentry_exit_to_user_mode+0xd/0x20 [ 1332.123225] ? irqentry_exit+0x3f/0x50 [ 1332.123226] ? exc_page_fault+0x8e/0x190 [ 1332.123228] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x6e/0xd8 [ 1332.123232] RIP: 0033:0x7fa74c514a37 [ 1332.123234] RSP: 002b:00007ffe31dd0788 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 0000000000000001 [ 1332.123238] RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 0000000000000008 RCX: 00007fa74c514a37 [ 1332.123239] RDX: 0000000000000008 RSI: 000055e27c447aa0 RDI: 0000000000000001 [ 1332.123241] RBP: 000055e27c447aa0 R08: 00007fa74c5d1460 R09: 000000007fffffff [ 1332.123242] R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 0000000000000008 [ 1332.123244] R13: 00007fa74c61a780 R14: 00007fa74c616600 R15: 00007fa74c615a00 [ 1332.123247] </TASK>

Fix this by calling cpufreq_cpu_put() wherever necessary.

[ rjw: Subject and changelog edits ]

Published: Oct 4, 2025
Updated: Feb 13, 2026
CVE: CVE-2023-53563
Severity: Medium
Exploit:
CISA KEV:

CVSS v3:

Severity: Medium
Score: 5.5
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

No CWE or OWASP classifications available.

Affected Software
References

Software	From	Fixed in
linux / linux_kernel	6.1	6.1.53
linux / linux_kernel	6.2	6.4.16
linux / linux_kernel	6.5	6.5.3

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Vulnerability (CVE) and why does it matter?

A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.

A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. In practice, risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.

Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.

Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.

SynScan combines attack surface monitoring and continuous security auditing to keep your inventory current, flag high-impact vulnerabilities early, and help you turn raw findings into a practical remediation plan.