CVE-2023-53165 udf: Fix uninitialized array access for some pathnames

What is CVE-2023-53165?

CVE-2023-53165 is a medium-severity 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:

udf: Fix uninitialized array access for some pathnames

For filenames that begin with . and are between 2 and 5 characters long, UDF charset conversion code would read uninitialized memory in the output buffer. The only practical impact is that the name may be prepended a "unification hash" when it is not actually needed but still it is good to fix this.

Weakness: CWE-908

Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53165?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2023-53165?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2023-53165 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53165 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 BELL-CVE-2023-53165, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53165, GHSA-952c-2cx9-gv4r, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53165.