CVE-2023-53552 drm/i915: mark requests for GuC virtual engines to avoid use-after-free
A use-after-free vulnerability in the Linux kernel's i915 driver allows local attackers to potentially execute arbitrary code or escalate privileges.
- 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-2023-53552?
CVE-2023-53552 is a high-severity use after free vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 4 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:
drm/i915: mark requests for GuC virtual engines to avoid use-after-free
References to i915_requests may be trapped by userspace inside a sync_file or dmabuf (dma-resv) and held indefinitely across different proceses. To counter-act the memory leaks, we try to not to keep references from the request past their completion. On the other side on fence release we need to know if rq->engine is valid and points to hw engine (true for non-virtual requests). To make it possible extra bit has been added to rq->execution_mask, for marking virtual engines.
(cherry picked from commit 280410677af763f3871b93e794a199cfcf6fb580)
Weakness: CWE-416
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53552?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2023-53552?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade to the fixed version. These bugs are found with fuzzing and sanitisers and avoided by memory-safe languages. More about Use after free.
Is CVE-2023-53552 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53552 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2023-53552, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53552, GHSA-j4wq-v2m2-959h, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53552.