CVE-2023-53645
CVE-2023-53645CVE-2023-53645
linux / linux_kernel
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
bpf: Make bpf_refcount_acquire fallible for non-owning refs
This patch fixes an incorrect assumption made in the original
bpf_refcount series [0], specifically that the BPF program calling
bpf_refcount_acquire on some node can always guarantee that the node is
alive. In that series, the patch adding failure behavior to rbtree_add
and list_push_{front, back} breaks this assumption for non-owning
references.
Consider the following program:
n = bpf_kptr_xchg(&mapval, NULL);
/* skip error checking */
bpf_spin_lock(&l);
if(bpf_rbtree_add(&t, &n->rb, less)) {
bpf_refcount_acquire(n);
/* Failed to add, do something else with the node */
}
bpf_spin_unlock(&l);
It's incorrect to assume that bpf_refcount_acquire will always succeed in this
scenario. bpf_refcount_acquire is being called in a critical section
here, but the lock being held is associated with rbtree t, which isn't
necessarily the lock assoc
Scoring
| CVSS | 7.8 () |
| Vector | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
| Last modified | 2026-08-04 |