Vulnerability · Published Dec 9, 2025 · Assigned by Linux

CVE-2023-53785mt76: mt7921: don't assume adequate headroom for SDIO headers

High 8.8

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 0.3% (higher than 19% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.

Severity (CVSS 3.1)8.8High
Exploit odds (30 days)0.3%top 80.6% 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: mt76: mt7921: don't assume adequate headroom for SDIO headers mt7921_usb_sdio_tx_prepare_skb() calls mt7921_usb_sdio_write_txwi() and mt7921_skb_add_usb_sdio_hdr(), both of which blindly assume that adequate headroom will be available in the passed skb. This assumption typically is satisfied when the skb was allocated in the net core for transmission via the mt7921 netdev (although even that is only an optimization and is not strictly guaranteed), but the assumption is sometimes not satisfied when the skb originated in the receive path of another netdev and was passed through to the mt7921, such as by the bridge layer. Blindly prepending bytes to an skb is always wrong. This commit introduces a call to skb_cow_head() before the call to mt7921_usb_sdio_write_txwi() in mt7921_usb_sdio_tx_prepare_skb() to ensure that at least MT_SDIO_TXD_SIZE + MT_SDIO_HDR_SIZE bytes can be pushed onto the skb. Without this fix, I can trivially cause kernel panics by bridging an MT7921AU-based USB 802.11ax interface with an Ethernet interface on an Intel Atom-based x86 system using its onboard RTL8169 PCI Ethernet adapter and also on an ARM-based Raspberry Pi 1 using its onboard SMSC9512 USB Ethernet adapter. Note that the panics do not occur in every system configuration, as they occur only if the receiving netdev leaves less headroom in its received skbs than the mt7921 needs for its SDIO headers. Here is an example stack trace of this panic on Raspberry Pi OS Lite 2023-02-21 running kernel 6.1.24+ [1]: skb_panic from skb_push+0x44/0x48 skb_push from mt7921_usb_sdio_tx_prepare_skb+0xd4/0x190 [mt7921_common] mt7921_usb_sdio_tx_prepare_skb [mt7921_common] from mt76u_tx_queue_skb+0x94/0x1d0 [mt76_usb] mt76u_tx_queue_skb [mt76_usb] from __mt76_tx_queue_skb+0x4c/0xc8 [mt76] __mt76_tx_queue_skb [mt76] from mt76_txq_schedule.part.0+0x13c/0x398 [mt76] mt76_txq_schedule.part.0 [mt76] from mt76_txq_schedule_all+0x24/0x30 [mt76] mt76_txq_schedule_all [mt76] from mt7921_tx_worker+0x58/0xf4 [mt7921_common] mt7921_tx_worker [mt7921_common] from __mt76_worker_fn+0x9c/0xec [mt76] __mt76_worker_fn [mt76] from kthread+0xbc/0xe0 kthread from ret_from_fork+0x14/0x34 After this fix, bridging the mt7921 interface works fine on both of my previously problematic systems. [1] https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/tree/5c276f55a4b21345cd4d6200a504ee991851ff7a

Affected packages & fixed versions

EcosystemPackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian:12linux6.1.55-1DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53785
Debian:13linux6.5.6-1DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53785
Debian:14linux6.5.6-1DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinuxno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-allwinner-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-awsno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-aws-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-aws-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-aws-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azureno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-azure-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-fdeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-fde-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-fde-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcpno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcp-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-gcp-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcp-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcp-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gkeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gkeopno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-hwe-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-hwe-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-hwe-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-hwe-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-ibmno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-intel-iot-realtimeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-intel-iotgno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-kvmno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatencyno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidiano fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-tegrano fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-tegra-igxno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-5.17no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.0no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.1no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.8no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oracleno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oracle-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-raspino fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-raspi-realtimeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-realtimeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-realtimeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-riscvno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-riscvno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-riscv-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-riscv-6.14no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-riscv-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-starfive-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-starfive-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-starfive-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-xilinx-zynqmpno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-53785

Affected products (as reported)

VendorProductVersions
Linux Linux e0f9fdda81bd32371ddac9222487e612027d8de2 – before 5c8bbb79c7cbca65534badf360f3b1145759c7bce0f9fdda81bd32371ddac9222487e612027d8de2 – before 414c0c04703423b78bc9dea1aa6493334dc61f6ee0f9fdda81bd32371ddac9222487e612027d8de2 – before 98c4d0abf5c478db1ad126ff0c187dbb84c0803c
Linux Linux 5.12

References