# CVE-2023-53134: bnxt_en: Avoid order-5 memory allocation for TPA data

> A memory allocation failure in the bnxt_en network driver can cause a denial of service by triggering a page allocation failure during interface initialization.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/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:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2023-53134, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53134, GHSA-9rrf-mxq4-m863, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53134

## What is CVE-2023-53134?

CVE-2023-53134 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:

bnxt_en: Avoid order-5 memory allocation for TPA data

The driver needs to keep track of all the possible concurrent TPA (GRO/LRO)
completions on the aggregation ring.  On P5 chips, the maximum number
of concurrent TPA is 256 and the amount of memory we allocate is order-5
on systems using 4K pages.  Memory allocation failure has been reported:

NetworkManager: page allocation failure: order:5, mode:0x40dc0(GFP_KERNEL|__GFP_COMP|__GFP_ZERO), nodemask=(null),cpuset=/,mems_allowed=0-1
CPU: 15 PID: 2995 Comm: NetworkManager Kdump: loaded Not tainted 5.10.156 #1
Hardware name: Dell Inc. PowerEdge R660/0M1CC5, BIOS 0.2.25 08/12/2022
Call Trace:
 dump_stack+0x57/0x6e
 warn_alloc.cold.120+0x7b/0xdd
 ? _cond_resched+0x15/0x30
 ? __alloc_pages_direct_compact+0x15f/0x170
 __alloc_pages_slowpath.constprop.108+0xc58/0xc70
 __alloc_pages_nodemask+0x2d0/0x300
 kmalloc_order+0x24/0xe0
 kmalloc_order_trace+0x19/0x80
 bnxt_alloc_mem+0x1150/0x15c0 [bnxt_en]
 ? bnxt_get_func_stat_ctxs+0x13/0x60 [bnxt_en]
 __bnxt_open_nic+0x12e/0x780 [bnxt_en]
 bnxt_open+0x10b/0x240 [bnxt_en]
 __dev_open+0xe9/0x180
 __dev_change_flags+0x1af/0x220
 dev_change_flags+0x21/0x60
 do_setlink+0x35c/0x1100

Instead of allocating this big chunk of memory and dividing it up for the
concurrent TPA instances, allocate each small chunk separately for each
TPA instance.  This will reduce it to order-0 allocations.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53134?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-53134?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2023-53134 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53134 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-2023-53134 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-53134 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.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53134 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-2023-53134/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-53134/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-53134
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-53134
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-53134

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-53134/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.