CVE-2023-53489

Published Oct 1, 2025

Last updated 5 months ago

Overview

Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: tcp/udp: Fix memleaks of sk and zerocopy skbs with TX timestamp. syzkaller reported [0] memory leaks of an UDP socket and ZEROCOPY skbs. We can reproduce the problem with these sequences: sk = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, 0) sk.setsockopt(SOL_SOCKET, SO_TIMESTAMPING, SOF_TIMESTAMPING_TX_SOFTWARE) sk.setsockopt(SOL_SOCKET, SO_ZEROCOPY, 1) sk.sendto(b'', MSG_ZEROCOPY, ('127.0.0.1', 53)) sk.close() sendmsg() calls msg_zerocopy_alloc(), which allocates a skb, sets skb->cb->ubuf.refcnt to 1, and calls sock_hold(). Here, struct ubuf_info_msgzc indirectly holds a refcnt of the socket. When the skb is sent, __skb_tstamp_tx() clones it and puts the clone into the socket's error queue with the TX timestamp. When the original skb is received locally, skb_copy_ubufs() calls skb_unclone(), and pskb_expand_head() increments skb->cb->ubuf.refcnt. This additional count is decremented while freeing the skb, but struct ubuf_info_msgzc still has a refcnt, so __msg_zerocopy_callback() is not called. The last refcnt is not released unless we retrieve the TX timestamped skb by recvmsg(). Since we clear the error queue in inet_sock_destruct() after the socket's refcnt reaches 0, there is a circular dependency. If we close() the socket holding such skbs, we never call sock_put() and leak the count, sk, and skb. TCP has the same problem, and commit e0c8bccd40fc ("net: stream: purge sk_error_queue in sk_stream_kill_queues()") tried to fix it by calling skb_queue_purge() during close(). However, there is a small chance that skb queued in a qdisc or device could be put into the error queue after the skb_queue_purge() call. In __skb_tstamp_tx(), the cloned skb should not have a reference to the ubuf to remove the circular dependency, but skb_clone() does not call skb_copy_ubufs() for zerocopy skb. So, we need to call skb_orphan_frags_rx() for the cloned skb to call skb_copy_ubufs(). [0]: BUG: memory leak unreferenced object 0xffff88800c6d2d00 (size 1152): comm "syz-executor392", pid 264, jiffies 4294785440 (age 13.044s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 cd af e8 81 00 00 00 00 ................ 02 00 07 40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ...@............ backtrace: [<0000000055636812>] sk_prot_alloc+0x64/0x2a0 net/core/sock.c:2024 [<0000000054d77b7a>] sk_alloc+0x3b/0x800 net/core/sock.c:2083 [<0000000066f3c7e0>] inet_create net/ipv4/af_inet.c:319 [inline] [<0000000066f3c7e0>] inet_create+0x31e/0xe40 net/ipv4/af_inet.c:245 [<000000009b83af97>] __sock_create+0x2ab/0x550 net/socket.c:1515 [<00000000b9b11231>] sock_create net/socket.c:1566 [inline] [<00000000b9b11231>] __sys_socket_create net/socket.c:1603 [inline] [<00000000b9b11231>] __sys_socket_create net/socket.c:1588 [inline] [<00000000b9b11231>] __sys_socket+0x138/0x250 net/socket.c:1636 [<000000004fb45142>] __do_sys_socket net/socket.c:1649 [inline] [<000000004fb45142>] __se_sys_socket net/socket.c:1647 [inline] [<000000004fb45142>] __x64_sys_socket+0x73/0xb0 net/socket.c:1647 [<0000000066999e0e>] do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 [inline] [<0000000066999e0e>] do_syscall_64+0x38/0x90 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80 [<0000000017f238c1>] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd BUG: memory leak unreferenced object 0xffff888017633a00 (size 240): comm "syz-executor392", pid 264, jiffies 4294785440 (age 13.044s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 2d 6d 0c 80 88 ff ff .........-m..... backtrace: [<000000002b1c4368>] __alloc_skb+0x229/0x320 net/core/skbuff.c:497 [<00000000143579a6>] alloc_skb include/linux/skbuff.h:1265 [inline] [<00000000143579a6>] sock_omalloc+0xaa/0x190 net/core/sock.c:2596 [<00000000be626478>] msg_zerocopy_alloc net/core/skbuff.c:1294 [inline] [<00000000be626478>] ---truncated---
Source
416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
NVD status
Analyzed
Products
linux_kernel

Risk scores

CVSS 3.1

Type
Primary
Base score
5.5
Impact score
3.6
Exploitability score
1.8
Vector string
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Severity
MEDIUM

Weaknesses

nvd@nist.gov
CWE-401

Social media

Hype score
Not currently trending

Configurations

  1. In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: coresight: tmc-etr: Fix race condition between sysfs and perf mode When trying to run perf and sysfs mode simultaneously, the WARN_ON() in tmc_etr_enable_hw() is triggered sometimes: WARNING: CPU: 42 PID: 3911571 at drivers/hwtracing/coresight/coresight-tmc-etr.c:1060 tmc_etr_enable_hw+0xc0/0xd8 [coresight_tmc] [..snip..] Call trace: tmc_etr_enable_hw+0xc0/0xd8 [coresight_tmc] (P) tmc_enable_etr_sink+0x11c/0x250 [coresight_tmc] (L) tmc_enable_etr_sink+0x11c/0x250 [coresight_tmc] coresight_enable_path+0x1c8/0x218 [coresight] coresight_enable_sysfs+0xa4/0x228 [coresight] enable_source_store+0x58/0xa8 [coresight] dev_attr_store+0x20/0x40 sysfs_kf_write+0x4c/0x68 kernfs_fop_write_iter+0x120/0x1b8 vfs_write+0x2c8/0x388 ksys_write+0x74/0x108 __arm64_sys_write+0x24/0x38 el0_svc_common.constprop.0+0x64/0x148 do_el0_svc+0x24/0x38 el0_svc+0x3c/0x130 el0t_64_sync_handler+0xc8/0xd0 el0t_64_sync+0x1ac/0x1b0 ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- Since the enablement of sysfs mode is separeted into two critical regions, one for sysfs buffer allocation and another for hardware enablement, it's possible to race with the perf mode. Fix this by double check whether the perf mode's been used before enabling the hardware in sysfs mode. mode: [sysfs mode] [perf mode] tmc_etr_get_sysfs_buffer() spin_lock(&drvdata->spinlock) [sysfs buffer allocation] spin_unlock(&drvdata->spinlock) spin_lock(&drvdata->spinlock) tmc_etr_enable_hw() drvdata->etr_buf = etr_perf->etr_buf spin_unlock(&drvdata->spinlock) spin_lock(&drvdata->spinlock) tmc_etr_enable_hw() WARN_ON(drvdata->etr_buf) // WARN sicne etr_buf initialized at the perf side spin_unlock(&drvdata->spinlock) With this fix, we retain the check for CS_MODE_PERF in get_etr_sysfs_buf. This ensures we verify whether the perf mode's already running before we actually allocate the buffer. Then we can save the time of allocating/freeing the sysfs buffer if race with the perf mode.CVE-2026-46272