# CVE-2023-52739: Fix page corruption caused by racy check in __free_pages

> A race condition in the Linux kernel's page freeing logic can cause memory corruption, leading to system crashes or potential code execution.

- **Severity:** High 7.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/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:** 21 May 2024
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2023-52739, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-52739, GHSA-8j29-hrg8-7mvc, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-52739

## What is CVE-2023-52739?

CVE-2023-52739 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 21 May 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:

Fix page corruption caused by racy check in __free_pages

When we upgraded our kernel, we started seeing some page corruption like
the following consistently:

  BUG: Bad page state in process ganesha.nfsd  pfn:1304ca
  page:0000000022261c55 refcount:0 mapcount:-128 mapping:0000000000000000 index:0x0 pfn:0x1304ca
  flags: 0x17ffffc0000000()
  raw: 0017ffffc0000000 ffff8a513ffd4c98 ffffeee24b35ec08 0000000000000000
  raw: 0000000000000000 0000000000000001 00000000ffffff7f 0000000000000000
  page dumped because: nonzero mapcount
  CPU: 0 PID: 15567 Comm: ganesha.nfsd Kdump: loaded Tainted: P    B      O      5.10.158-1.nutanix.20221209.el7.x86_64 #1
  Hardware name: VMware, Inc. VMware Virtual Platform/440BX Desktop Reference Platform, BIOS 6.00 04/05/2016
  Call Trace:
   dump_stack+0x74/0x96
   bad_page.cold+0x63/0x94
   check_new_page_bad+0x6d/0x80
   rmqueue+0x46e/0x970
   get_page_from_freelist+0xcb/0x3f0
   ? _cond_resched+0x19/0x40
   __alloc_pages_nodemask+0x164/0x300
   alloc_pages_current+0x87/0xf0
   skb_page_frag_refill+0x84/0x110
   ...

Sometimes, it would also show up as corruption in the free list pointer
and cause crashes.

After bisecting the issue, we found the issue started from commit
e320d3012d25 ("mm/page_alloc.c: fix freeing non-compound pages"):

	if (put_page_testzero(page))
		free_the_page(page, order);
	else if (!PageHead(page))
		while (order-- > 0)
			free_the_page(page + (1 << order), order);

So the problem is the check PageHead is racy because at this point we
already dropped our reference to the page.  So even if we came in with
compound page, the page can already be freed and PageHead can return
false and we will end up freeing all the tail pages causing double free.

Weakness: CWE-415 (Double Free)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-52739?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-52739?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2023-52739 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-52739 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-2023-52739 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-52739 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 21 May 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-2023-52739 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-2023-52739/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-52739/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-52739
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-52739
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-52739

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-52739/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.