CVE-2023-53698xsk: fix refcount underflow in error path
- 7.8HighCVSS base score
- 0.17%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 94% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: xsk: fix refcount underflow in error path Fix a refcount underflow problem reported by syzbot that can happen when a system is running out of memory. If xp_alloc_tx_descs() fails, and it can only fail due to not having enough memory, then the error path is triggered. In this error path, the refcount of the pool is decremented as it has incremented before. However, the reference to the pool in the socket was not nulled. This means that when the socket is closed later, the socket teardown logic will think that there is a pool attached to the socket and try to decrease the refcount again, leading to a refcount underflow. I chose this fix as it involved adding just a single line. Another option would have been to move xp_get_pool() and the assignment of xs->pool to after the if-statement and using xs_umem->pool instead of xs->pool in the whole if-statement resulting in somewhat simpler code, but this would have led to much more churn in the code base perhaps making it harder to backport.
Timeline
ID reserved
By Linux
Published
- 12 months later
· 12 months later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| LinuxCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | High7.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
| NVDNVD · Deferred | 3.1 | High7.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.17% · top 94% of all CVEs (15 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: total
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 7.8.
Affected products
- affected f7019562f142bc041f9cde63af338d1886585923 – < 789fcd94c9cac133dd4d96e193188661aca9f6c3
- affected ba3beec2ec1d3b4fd8672ca6e781dac4b3267f6e – < 15b453cf7348973217558235b9ece2ee5fea6777
- affected ba3beec2ec1d3b4fd8672ca6e781dac4b3267f6e – < 3e7722c31d4167eb7f3ffd35aba52cab69b79072
- affected ba3beec2ec1d3b4fd8672ca6e781dac4b3267f6e – < 85c2c79a07302fe68a1ad5cc449458cc559e314d
- affected 9f0c8a9d4ef1b9ebee0e4ac2495fe790727044aa
- affected 5.15.47 – < 5.15.127
- affected 5.17.15 – < 5.18
- affected 5.18
- unaffected < 5.18
- unaffected 5.15.127 – ≤ 5.15.*
- unaffected 6.1.46 – ≤ 6.1.*
- unaffected 6.4.11 – ≤ 6.4.*
- unaffected 6.5 – ≤ *
References
References4
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/789fcd94c9cac133dd4d96e193188661aca9f6c3 (opens in a new tab)
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/15b453cf7348973217558235b9ece2ee5fea6777 (opens in a new tab)
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3e7722c31d4167eb7f3ffd35aba52cab69b79072 (opens in a new tab)
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/85c2c79a07302fe68a1ad5cc449458cc559e314d (opens in a new tab)
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2023-60030 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2023-53698)Record last updated .