# CVE-2023-53102: ice: xsk: disable txq irq before flushing hw

> A race condition in the Intel ice driver causes a kernel NULL pointer dereference, leading to a system crash when terminating XDP sockets.

- **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:** 2 May 2025
- **Updated:** 15 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2023-53102, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53102, GHSA-7924-4fvj-rf9c, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53102

## What is CVE-2023-53102?

CVE-2023-53102 is a high-severity 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:

ice: xsk: disable txq irq before flushing hw

ice_qp_dis() intends to stop a given queue pair that is a target of xsk
pool attach/detach. One of the steps is to disable interrupts on these
queues. It currently is broken in a way that txq irq is turned off
*after* HW flush which in turn takes no effect.

ice_qp_dis():
-> ice_qvec_dis_irq()
--> disable rxq irq
--> flush hw
-> ice_vsi_stop_tx_ring()
-->disable txq irq

Below splat can be triggered by following steps:
- start xdpsock WITHOUT loading xdp prog
- run xdp_rxq_info with XDP_TX action on this interface
- start traffic
- terminate xdpsock

[  256.312485] BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000018
[  256.319560] #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode
[  256.324775] #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page
[  256.329994] PGD 0 P4D 0
[  256.332574] Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP NOPTI
[  256.337006] CPU: 3 PID: 32 Comm: ksoftirqd/3 Tainted: G           OE      6.2.0-rc5+ #51
[  256.345218] Hardware name: Intel Corporation S2600WFT/S2600WFT, BIOS SE5C620.86B.02.01.0008.031920191559 03/19/2019
[  256.355807] RIP: 0010:ice_clean_rx_irq_zc+0x9c/0x7d0 [ice]
[  256.361423] Code: b7 8f 8a 00 00 00 66 39 ca 0f 84 f1 04 00 00 49 8b 47 40 4c 8b 24 d0 41 0f b7 45 04 66 25 ff 3f 66 89 04 24 0f 84 85 02 00 00 <49> 8b 44 24 18 0f b7 14 24 48 05 00 01 00 00 49 89 04 24 49 89 44
[  256.380463] RSP: 0018:ffffc900088bfd20 EFLAGS: 00010206
[  256.385765] RAX: 000000000000003c RBX: 0000000000000035 RCX: 000000000000067f
[  256.393012] RDX: 0000000000000775 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: ffff8881deb3ac80
[  256.400256] RBP: 000000000000003c R08: ffff889847982710 R09: 0000000000010000
[  256.407500] R10: ffffffff82c060c0 R11: 0000000000000004 R12: 0000000000000000
[  256.414746] R13: ffff88811165eea0 R14: ffffc9000d255000 R15: ffff888119b37600
[  256.421990] FS:  0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff8897e0cc0000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
[  256.430207] CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
[  256.436036] CR2: 0000000000000018 CR3: 0000000005c0a006 CR4: 00000000007706e0
[  256.443283] DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000
[  256.450527] DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400
[  256.457770] PKRU: 55555554
[  256.460529] Call Trace:
[  256.463015]  <TASK>
[  256.465157]  ? ice_xmit_zc+0x6e/0x150 [ice]
[  256.469437]  ice_napi_poll+0x46d/0x680 [ice]
[  256.473815]  ? _raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore+0x1b/0x40
[  256.478863]  __napi_poll+0x29/0x160
[  256.482409]  net_rx_action+0x136/0x260
[  256.486222]  __do_softirq+0xe8/0x2e5
[  256.489853]  ? smpboot_thread_fn+0x2c/0x270
[  256.494108]  run_ksoftirqd+0x2a/0x50
[  256.497747]  smpboot_thread_fn+0x1c1/0x270
[  256.501907]  ? __pfx_smpboot_thread_fn+0x10/0x10
[  256.506594]  kthread+0xea/0x120
[  256.509785]  ? __pfx_kthread+0x10/0x10
[  256.513597]  ret_from_fork+0x29/0x50
[  256.517238]  </TASK>

In fact, irqs were not disabled and napi managed to be scheduled and run
while xsk_pool pointer was still valid, but SW ring of xdp_buff pointers
was already freed.

To fix this, call ice_qvec_dis_irq() after ice_vsi_stop_tx_ring(). Also
while at it, remove redundant ice_clean_rx_ring() call - this is handled
in ice_qp_clean_rings().

Weakness: CWE-476 (NULL Pointer Dereference)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53102?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-53102?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2023-53102 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53102 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-2023-53102 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-53102 is a high-severity 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.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53102 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-2023-53102/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-53102/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-53102
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-53102
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-53102

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-53102/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.
