CVE-2023-53037 scsi: mpi3mr: Bad drive in topology results kernel crash

What is CVE-2023-53037?

CVE-2023-53037 is a high-severity use after free vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 2 May 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:

scsi: mpi3mr: Bad drive in topology results kernel crash

When the SAS Transport Layer support is enabled and a device exposed to the OS by the driver fails INQUIRY commands, the driver frees up the memory allocated for an internal HBA port data structure. However, in some places, the reference to the freed memory is not cleared. When the firmware sends the Device Info change event for the same device again, the freed memory is accessed and that leads to memory corruption and OS crash.

Weakness: CWE-416

Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53037?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2023-53037?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade to the fixed version. These bugs are found with fuzzing and sanitisers and avoided by memory-safe languages. More about Use after free.

Is CVE-2023-53037 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53037 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 AZL-70120, BELL-CVE-2023-53037, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53037, GHSA-2px8-v868-2g2q, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2023-53037, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53037.