CVE-2023-53073 perf/x86/amd/core: Always clear status for idx
A logic error in the Linux kernel's AMD performance monitoring driver can cause excessive warnings and potential system instability, requiring a kernel patch.
- 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
What is CVE-2023-53073?
CVE-2023-53073 is a medium-severity denial of service 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:
perf/x86/amd/core: Always clear status for idx
The variable 'status' (which contains the unhandled overflow bits) is not being properly masked in some cases, displaying the following warning:
WARNING: CPU: 156 PID: 475601 at arch/x86/events/amd/core.c:972 amd_pmu_v2_handle_irq+0x216/0x270
This seems to be happening because the loop is being continued before the status bit being unset, in case x86_perf_event_set_period() returns 0. This is also causing an inconsistency because the "handled" counter is incremented, but the status bit is not cleaned.
Move the bit cleaning together above, together when the "handled" counter is incremented.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53073?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2023-53073?
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-2023-53073 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53073 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2023-53073, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53073, GHSA-j247-q9q3-vr7w, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53073.