Vulnerability · Published Oct 1, 2025 · Assigned by Linux

CVE-2023-53500xfrm: fix slab-use-after-free in decode_session6

High 7.3

In plain English

A high-severity security flaw in Linux from Linux. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.2% (higher than 6% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.

Severity (CVSS 3.1)7.3High
Exploit odds (30 days)0.2%top 94.4% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo reportsCISA SSVC: none
Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known

Official description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: xfrm: fix slab-use-after-free in decode_session6 When the xfrm device is set to the qdisc of the sfb type, the cb field of the sent skb may be modified during enqueuing. Then, slab-use-after-free may occur when the xfrm device sends IPv6 packets. The stack information is as follows: BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in decode_session6+0x103f/0x1890 Read of size 1 at addr ffff8881111458ef by task swapper/3/0 CPU: 3 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/3 Not tainted 6.4.0-next-20230707 #409 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.14.0-1.fc33 04/01/2014 Call Trace: <IRQ> dump_stack_lvl+0xd9/0x150 print_address_description.constprop.0+0x2c/0x3c0 kasan_report+0x11d/0x130 decode_session6+0x103f/0x1890 __xfrm_decode_session+0x54/0xb0 xfrmi_xmit+0x173/0x1ca0 dev_hard_start_xmit+0x187/0x700 sch_direct_xmit+0x1a3/0xc30 __qdisc_run+0x510/0x17a0 __dev_queue_xmit+0x2215/0x3b10 neigh_connected_output+0x3c2/0x550 ip6_finish_output2+0x55a/0x1550 ip6_finish_output+0x6b9/0x1270 ip6_output+0x1f1/0x540 ndisc_send_skb+0xa63/0x1890 ndisc_send_rs+0x132/0x6f0 addrconf_rs_timer+0x3f1/0x870 call_timer_fn+0x1a0/0x580 expire_timers+0x29b/0x4b0 run_timer_softirq+0x326/0x910 __do_softirq+0x1d4/0x905 irq_exit_rcu+0xb7/0x120 sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt+0x97/0xc0 </IRQ> <TASK> asm_sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt+0x1a/0x20 RIP: 0010:intel_idle_hlt+0x23/0x30 Code: 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 f3 0f 1e fa 41 54 41 89 d4 0f 1f 44 00 00 66 90 0f 1f 44 00 00 0f 00 2d c4 9f ab 00 0f 1f 44 00 00 fb f4 <fa> 44 89 e0 41 5c c3 66 0f 1f 44 00 00 f3 0f 1e fa 41 54 41 89 d4 RSP: 0018:ffffc90000197d78 EFLAGS: 00000246 RAX: 00000000000a83c3 RBX: ffffe8ffffd09c50 RCX: ffffffff8a22d8e5 RDX: 0000000000000001 RSI: ffffffff8d3f8080 RDI: ffffe8ffffd09c50 RBP: ffffffff8d3f8080 R08: 0000000000000001 R09: ffffed1026ba6d9d R10: ffff888135d36ceb R11: 0000000000000001 R12: 0000000000000001 R13: ffffffff8d3f8100 R14: 0000000000000001 R15: 0000000000000000 cpuidle_enter_state+0xd3/0x6f0 cpuidle_enter+0x4e/0xa0 do_idle+0x2fe/0x3c0 cpu_startup_entry+0x18/0x20 start_secondary+0x200/0x290 secondary_startup_64_no_verify+0x167/0x16b </TASK> Allocated by task 939: kasan_save_stack+0x22/0x40 kasan_set_track+0x25/0x30 __kasan_slab_alloc+0x7f/0x90 kmem_cache_alloc_node+0x1cd/0x410 kmalloc_reserve+0x165/0x270 __alloc_skb+0x129/0x330 inet6_ifa_notify+0x118/0x230 __ipv6_ifa_notify+0x177/0xbe0 addrconf_dad_completed+0x133/0xe00 addrconf_dad_work+0x764/0x1390 process_one_work+0xa32/0x16f0 worker_thread+0x67d/0x10c0 kthread+0x344/0x440 ret_from_fork+0x1f/0x30 The buggy address belongs to the object at ffff888111145800 which belongs to the cache skbuff_small_head of size 640 The buggy address is located 239 bytes inside of freed 640-byte region [ffff888111145800, ffff888111145a80) As commit f855691975bb ("xfrm6: Fix the nexthdr offset in _decode_session6.") showed, xfrm_decode_session was originally intended only for the receive path. IP6CB(skb)->nhoff is not set during transmission. Therefore, set the cb field in the skb to 0 before sending packets.

Affected packages & fixed versions

EcosystemPackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian:12linux6.1.52-1DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53500
Debian:13linux6.4.13-1DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53500
Debian:14linux6.4.13-1DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux5.15.0-91.101UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-allwinner-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-aws5.15.0-1051.56UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-aws-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-aws-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-aws-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure5.15.0-1053.61UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-azure-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-fde5.15.0-1053.61.1UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-fde-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-fde-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcp5.15.0-1048.56UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcp-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-gcp-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcp-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcp-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gke5.15.0-1048.53UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gkeop5.15.0-1034.40UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-hwe-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-hwe-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-hwe-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-hwe-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-ibm5.15.0-1044.47UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-intelno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-intel-iot-realtimeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-intel-iotg5.15.0-1046.52UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-kvm5.15.0-1048.53UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency5.15.0-91.101UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia5.15.0-1042.42UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-tegra5.15.0-1020.20UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-tegra-igx5.15.0-1007.7UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-5.17no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.0no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.1no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.8no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oracle5.15.0-1049.55UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oracle-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-raspi5.15.0-1044.47UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-raspi-realtimeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-realtimeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-realtimeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-riscvno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-riscvno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-riscv-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-riscv-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-starfive-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-starfive-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-starfive-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-xilinx-zynqmp5.15.0-1027.31UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53500

Affected products (as reported)

VendorProductVersions
Linux Linux f855691975bb06373a98711e4cfe2c224244b536 – before da4cbaa75ed088b6d70db77b9103a27e2359e243f855691975bb06373a98711e4cfe2c224244b536 – before db0e50741f0387f388e9ec824ea7ae8456554d5bf855691975bb06373a98711e4cfe2c224244b536 – before bafa236380816b41b2c4c6970d9067fefa4a6c9ef855691975bb06373a98711e4cfe2c224244b536 – before 44b3d40967009304617a7a6486490c1d6c12f899f855691975bb06373a98711e4cfe2c224244b536 – before 0d27567fde5be5f0edc2db5c110142b7915b8fa8f855691975bb06373a98711e4cfe2c224244b536 – before 86f15300a22656db3fa8c8967defbcd24fac4d37f855691975bb06373a98711e4cfe2c224244b536 – before 53223f2ed1ef5c90dad814daaaefea4e68a933c8
Linux Linux 3.19

References