CVE-2023-53180 wifi: ath12k: Avoid NULL pointer access during management transmit cleanup

What is CVE-2023-53180?

CVE-2023-53180 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:

wifi: ath12k: Avoid NULL pointer access during management transmit cleanup

Currently 'ar' reference is not added in skb_cb. Though this is generally not used during transmit completion callbacks, on interface removal the remaining idr cleanup callback uses the ar pointer from skb_cb from management txmgmt_idr. Hence fill them during transmit call for proper usage to avoid NULL pointer dereference.

Tested-on: QCN9274 hw2.0 PCI WLAN.WBE.1.0.1-00029-QCAHKSWPL_SILICONZ-1

Weakness: CWE-476

Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53180?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2023-53180?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2023-53180 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53180 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-2023-53180, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53180, GHSA-7prc-j244-3g74, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2023-53180, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53180.