CVE-2023-53209 wifi: mac80211_hwsim: Fix possible NULL dereference

What is CVE-2023-53209?

CVE-2023-53209 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: mac80211_hwsim: Fix possible NULL dereference

In a call to mac80211_hwsim_select_tx_link() the sta pointer might be NULL, thus need to check that it is not NULL before accessing it.

Weakness: CWE-476

Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53209?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2023-53209?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2023-53209 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53209 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 AZL-71353, BELL-CVE-2023-53209, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53209, GHSA-4929-6x76-2xpw, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2023-53209, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2023-53209 and 1 more.