# CVE-2023-53151: md/raid10: prevent soft lockup while flush writes

> An attacker can cause a soft lockup and denial of service in the Linux kernel's RAID10 module by triggering excessive write operations.

- **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:** 15 Sep 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2023-53151, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53151, GHSA-c65j-9jmw-78h6, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53151

## What is CVE-2023-53151?

CVE-2023-53151 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 15 Sep 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:

md/raid10: prevent soft lockup while flush writes

Currently, there is no limit for raid1/raid10 plugged bio. While flushing
writes, raid1 has cond_resched() while raid10 doesn't, and too many
writes can cause soft lockup.

Follow up soft lockup can be triggered easily with writeback test for
raid10 with ramdisks:

watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#10 stuck for 27s! [md0_raid10:1293]
Call Trace:
 <TASK>
 call_rcu+0x16/0x20
 put_object+0x41/0x80
 __delete_object+0x50/0x90
 delete_object_full+0x2b/0x40
 kmemleak_free+0x46/0xa0
 slab_free_freelist_hook.constprop.0+0xed/0x1a0
 kmem_cache_free+0xfd/0x300
 mempool_free_slab+0x1f/0x30
 mempool_free+0x3a/0x100
 bio_free+0x59/0x80
 bio_put+0xcf/0x2c0
 free_r10bio+0xbf/0xf0
 raid_end_bio_io+0x78/0xb0
 one_write_done+0x8a/0xa0
 raid10_end_write_request+0x1b4/0x430
 bio_endio+0x175/0x320
 brd_submit_bio+0x3b9/0x9b7 [brd]
 __submit_bio+0x69/0xe0
 submit_bio_noacct_nocheck+0x1e6/0x5a0
 submit_bio_noacct+0x38c/0x7e0
 flush_pending_writes+0xf0/0x240
 raid10d+0xac/0x1ed0

Fix the problem by adding cond_resched() to raid10 like what raid1 did.

Note that unlimited plugged bio still need to be optimized, for example,
in the case of lots of dirty pages writeback, this will take lots of
memory and io will spend a long time in plug, hence io latency is bad.

Weakness: CWE-667 (Improper Locking)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53151?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-53151?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2023-53151 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53151 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-2023-53151 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-53151 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 15 Sep 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-2023-53151 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-2023-53151/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-53151/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-53151
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-53151
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-53151

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-53151/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.