# CVE-2023-53475: usb: xhci: tegra: fix sleep in atomic call

> A bug in the Linux kernel Tegra USB driver causes a sleep in atomic context, leading to a system crash or denial of service.

- **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:** 1 Oct 2025
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2023-53475, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53475, GHSA-hj96-v5c9-949r, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53475

## What is CVE-2023-53475?

CVE-2023-53475 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 1 Oct 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:

usb: xhci: tegra: fix sleep in atomic call

When we set the dual-role port to Host mode, we observed the following
splat:
[  167.057718] BUG: sleeping function called from invalid context at
include/linux/sched/mm.h:229
[  167.057872] Workqueue: events tegra_xusb_usb_phy_work
[  167.057954] Call trace:
[  167.057962]  dump_backtrace+0x0/0x210
[  167.057996]  show_stack+0x30/0x50
[  167.058020]  dump_stack_lvl+0x64/0x84
[  167.058065]  dump_stack+0x14/0x34
[  167.058100]  __might_resched+0x144/0x180
[  167.058140]  __might_sleep+0x64/0xd0
[  167.058171]  slab_pre_alloc_hook.constprop.0+0xa8/0x110
[  167.058202]  __kmalloc_track_caller+0x74/0x2b0
[  167.058233]  kvasprintf+0xa4/0x190
[  167.058261]  kasprintf+0x58/0x90
[  167.058285]  tegra_xusb_find_port_node.isra.0+0x58/0xd0
[  167.058334]  tegra_xusb_find_port+0x38/0xa0
[  167.058380]  tegra_xusb_padctl_get_usb3_companion+0x38/0xd0
[  167.058430]  tegra_xhci_id_notify+0x8c/0x1e0
[  167.058473]  notifier_call_chain+0x88/0x100
[  167.058506]  atomic_notifier_call_chain+0x44/0x70
[  167.058537]  tegra_xusb_usb_phy_work+0x60/0xd0
[  167.058581]  process_one_work+0x1dc/0x4c0
[  167.058618]  worker_thread+0x54/0x410
[  167.058650]  kthread+0x188/0x1b0
[  167.058672]  ret_from_fork+0x10/0x20

The function tegra_xusb_padctl_get_usb3_companion eventually calls
tegra_xusb_find_port and this in turn calls kasprintf which might sleep
and so cannot be called from an atomic context.

Fix this by moving the call to tegra_xusb_padctl_get_usb3_companion to
the tegra_xhci_id_work function where it is really needed.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53475?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2023-53475?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2023-53475 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53475 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-2023-53475 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-53475 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 1 Oct 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-2023-53475 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-2023-53475/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-53475/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-53475
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-53475
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-53475

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-53475/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.