CVE-2023-53017 Bluetooth: hci_sync: fix memory leak in hci_update_adv_data()

What is CVE-2023-53017?

CVE-2023-53017 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 27 Mar 2025. 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:

Bluetooth: hci_sync: fix memory leak in hci_update_adv_data()

When hci_cmd_sync_queue() failed in hci_update_adv_data(), inst_ptr is not freed, which will cause memory leak, convert to use ERR_PTR/PTR_ERR to pass the instance to callback so no memory needs to be allocated.

Weakness: CWE-401

Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53017?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2023-53017?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2023-53017 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53017 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as BELL-CVE-2023-53017, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53017, GHSA-xr6w-2qh5-hfqq, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53017.