CVE-2023-53288 drm/client: Fix memory leak in drm_client_modeset_probe

What is CVE-2023-53288?

CVE-2023-53288 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 16 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:

drm/client: Fix memory leak in drm_client_modeset_probe

When a new mode is set to modeset->mode, the previous mode should be freed. This fixes the following kmemleak report:

drm_mode_duplicate+0x45/0x220 [drm] drm_client_modeset_probe+0x944/0xf50 [drm] __drm_fb_helper_initial_config_and_unlock+0xb4/0x2c0 [drm_kms_helper] drm_fbdev_client_hotplug+0x2bc/0x4d0 [drm_kms_helper] drm_client_register+0x169/0x240 [drm] ast_pci_probe+0x142/0x190 [ast] local_pci_probe+0xdc/0x180 work_for_cpu_fn+0x4e/0xa0 process_one_work+0x8b7/0x1540 worker_thread+0x70a/0xed0 kthread+0x29f/0x340 ret_from_fork+0x1f/0x30

Weakness: CWE-401

Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53288?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2023-53288?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2023-53288 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53288 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-2023-53288, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53288, GHSA-5c8m-gj2j-m6jw, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53288.