CVE-2023-53529 wifi: rtw88: Fix memory leak in rtw88_usb
A memory leak in the rtw88 USB WiFi driver allows attackers to exhaust kernel memory, potentially causing system instability or denial of service.
- 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
What is CVE-2023-53529?
CVE-2023-53529 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:
wifi: rtw88: Fix memory leak in rtw88_usb
Kmemleak shows the following leak arising from routine in the usb probe routine:
unreferenced object 0xffff895cb29bba00 (size 512): comm "(udev-worker)", pid 534, jiffies 4294903932 (age 102751.088s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 77 30 30 30 00 00 00 00 02 2f 2d 2b 30 00 00 00 w000...../-+0... 02 00 2a 28 00 00 00 00 ff 55 ff ff ff 00 00 00 ..*(.....U...... backtrace: [<ffffffff9265fa36>] kmalloc_trace+0x26/0x90 [<ffffffffc17eec41>] rtw_usb_probe+0x2f1/0x680 [rtw_usb] [<ffffffffc03e19fd>] usb_probe_interface+0xdd/0x2e0 [usbcore] [<ffffffff92b4f2fe>] really_probe+0x18e/0x3d0 [<ffffffff92b4f5b8>] __driver_probe_device+0x78/0x160 [<ffffffff92b4f6bf>] driver_probe_device+0x1f/0x90 [<ffffffff92b4f8df>] __driver_attach+0xbf/0x1b0 [<ffffffff92b4d350>] bus_for_each_dev+0x70/0xc0 [<ffffffff92b4e51e>] bus_add_driver+0x10e/0x210 [<ffffffff92b50935>] driver_register+0x55/0xf0 [<ffffffffc03e0708>] usb_register_driver+0x88/0x140 [usbcore] [<ffffffff92401153>] do_one_initcall+0x43/0x210 [<ffffffff9254f42a>] do_init_module+0x4a/0x200 [<ffffffff92551d1c>] __do_sys_finit_module+0xac/0x120 [<ffffffff92ee6626>] do_syscall_64+0x56/0x80 [<ffffffff9300006a>] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x46/0xb0
The leak was verified to be real by unloading the driver, which resulted in a dangling pointer to the allocation.
The allocated memory is freed in rtw_usb_intf_deinit().
Weakness: CWE-401
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53529?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2023-53529?
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-2023-53529 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53529 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2023-53529, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53529, GHSA-77vw-m47q-m4gp, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2023-53529, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2023-53529, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2023-53529 and 1 more.