CVE-2023-53641

MEDIUM
MEDIUM Priority: 0.01 BB Relevance: 36/100
Published: 2025-10-07 Modified: 2026-11-05 First seen: 2026-11-05 Status: active

Attack Surface

Low Complexity No Interaction

CVSS Vector Breakdown

AV: Local
AC: Low
PR: Low
UI: None
S: Unchanged
C: None
I: None
A: High

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: ath9k: hif_usb: fix memory leak of remain_skbs hif_dev->remain_skb is allocated and used exclusively in ath9k_hif_usb_rx_stream(). It is implied that an allocated remain_skb is processed and subsequently freed (in error paths) only during the next call of ath9k_hif_usb_rx_stream(). So, if the urbs are deallocated between those two calls due to the device deinitialization or suspend, it is possible that ath9k_hif_usb_rx_stream() is not called next time and the allocated remain_skb is leaked. Our local Syzkaller instance was able to trigger that. remain_skb makes sense when receiving two consecutive urbs which are logically linked together, i.e. a specific data field from the first skb indicates a cached skb to be allocated, memcpy'd with some data and subsequently processed in the next call to ath9k_hif_usb_rx_stream(). Urbs deallocation supposedly makes that link irrelevant so we need to free the cached skb in those cases. Fix the leak by introducing a function to explicitly free remain_skb (if it is not NULL) when the rx urbs have been deallocated. remain_skb is NULL when it has not been allocated at all (hif_dev struct is kzalloced) or when it has been processed in next call to ath9k_hif_usb_rx_stream(). Found by Linux Verification Center (linuxtesting.org) with Syzkaller.

Weakness Classification (1)

Affected Software (10)

VendorProductVersion
Linux Linux fb9987d0f748c983bb795a86f47522313f701a08 < 6719e3797ec52cd144c8a5ba8aaab36674800585
Linux Linux fb9987d0f748c983bb795a86f47522313f701a08 < d9899318660791141ea6002fda5577b2c5d7386e
Linux Linux fb9987d0f748c983bb795a86f47522313f701a08 < 320d760a35273aa815d58b57e4fd9ba5279a3489
Linux Linux fb9987d0f748c983bb795a86f47522313f701a08 < 59073060fe0950c6ecbe12bdc06469dcac62128d
Linux Linux fb9987d0f748c983bb795a86f47522313f701a08 < 9b9356a3014123f0ce4b50d9278c1265173150ab
Linux Linux fb9987d0f748c983bb795a86f47522313f701a08 < f0931fc8f4b6847c72e170d2326861c0a081d680
Linux Linux fb9987d0f748c983bb795a86f47522313f701a08 < 8f02d538878c9b1501f624595eb22ee4e5e0ff84
Linux Linux fb9987d0f748c983bb795a86f47522313f701a08 < 7654cc03eb699297130b693ec34e25f77b17c947
Linux Linux 2.6.35
linux linux_kernel 2.6.35 – 4.19.283

Bug Bounty Relevance

36 / 100
✓ Low complexity
✓ No user interaction

CVSS Score

5.5 / 10.0 v3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

EPSS — Exploitation Probability

0.16%
Raw Score 0.001600
Percentile 5.2%
Date 2026-11-14

EPSS Trend

2026-11-14
0.00160
2026-11-13
0.00160
2026-11-12
0.00160
2026-11-10
0.00160
2026-11-09
0.00160
2026-11-08
0.00160
2026-11-07
0.00160
2026-11-06
0.00160
2026-11-05
0.00160

Intelligence Sources

mitre ref →
nvd ref →