CVE-2023-53489

Source
https://cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-53489
Import Source
https://storage.googleapis.com/osv-test-cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2023-53489.json
JSON Data
https://api.test.osv.dev/v1/vulns/CVE-2023-53489
Downstream
Related
Published
2025-10-01T11:45:41Z
Modified
2026-08-12T03:30:23Z
Summary
tcp/udp: Fix memleaks of sk and zerocopy skbs with TX timestamp.
Details

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---

Database specific
{
    "cna_assigner": "Linux",
    "osv_generated_from": "https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2023/53xxx/CVE-2023-53489.json"
}
References

Affected packages

Git / git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git

Affected ranges

Type
GIT
Repo
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git
Events
Introduced
f214f915e7db99091f1312c48b30928c1e0c90b7
Fixed
281072fb2a7294cde7acbf5375b879f40a8001b7
Fixed
1f69c086b20e27763af28145981435423f088268
Fixed
602fa8af44fd55a58f9e94eb673e8adad2c6cc46
Fixed
230a5ed7d813fb516de81d23f09d7506753e41e9
Fixed
43e4197dd5f6b474a8b16f8b6a42cd45cf4f9d1a
Fixed
cb52e7f24c1d01a536a847dff0d1d95889cc3b5c
Fixed
30290f210ba7426ff7592fe2eb4114b1b5bad219
Fixed
426384dd4980040651536fef5feac4dcc4d7ee4e
Fixed
50749f2dd6854a41830996ad302aef2ffaf011d8

Database specific

source
"https://storage.googleapis.com/osv-test-cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2023-53489.json"

Linux / Kernel

Package

Name
Kernel

Affected ranges

Type
ECOSYSTEM
Events
Introduced
4.14.0
Fixed
4.14.315
Type
ECOSYSTEM
Events
Introduced
4.15.0
Fixed
4.19.283
Type
ECOSYSTEM
Events
Introduced
4.20.0
Fixed
5.4.243
Type
ECOSYSTEM
Events
Introduced
5.5.0
Fixed
5.10.180
Type
ECOSYSTEM
Events
Introduced
5.11.0
Fixed
5.15.111
Type
ECOSYSTEM
Events
Introduced
5.16.0
Fixed
6.1.28
Type
ECOSYSTEM
Events
Introduced
6.2.0
Fixed
6.2.15
Type
ECOSYSTEM
Events
Introduced
6.3.0
Fixed
6.3.2

Database specific

source
"https://storage.googleapis.com/osv-test-cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2023-53489.json"