# CVE-2023-52569: btrfs: remove BUG() after failure to insert delayed dir index item

> A local attacker can trigger a kernel panic in the Btrfs filesystem by causing a delayed directory index insertion failure, resulting in a denial of service.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 2 Mar 2024
- **Updated:** 23 May 2026
- **Also known as:** AZL-55779, BELL-CVE-2023-52569, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-52569, GHSA-484w-f535-whcj, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2023-52569, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-52569

## What is CVE-2023-52569?

CVE-2023-52569 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 2 Mar 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

btrfs: remove BUG() after failure to insert delayed dir index item

Instead of calling BUG() when we fail to insert a delayed dir index item
into the delayed node's tree, we can just release all the resources we
have allocated/acquired before and return the error to the caller. This is
fine because all existing call chains undo anything they have done before
calling btrfs_insert_delayed_dir_index() or BUG_ON (when creating pending
snapshots in the transaction commit path).

So remove the BUG() call and do proper error handling.

This relates to a syzbot report linked below, but does not fix it because
it only prevents hitting a BUG(), it does not fix the issue where somehow
we attempt to use twice the same index number for different index items.

Weakness: CWE-617 (Reachable Assertion)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-52569?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-52569?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2023-52569 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-52569 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2023-52569 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-52569 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 2 Mar 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-52569 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-52569/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-52569/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-52569
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-52569
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-52569

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-52569/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.