CVE-2023-53565 wifi: brcmfmac: Check for probe() id argument being NULL
A null pointer dereference in the brcmfmac WiFi driver causes a kernel crash during device resume or manual binding, leading to 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-2023-53565?
CVE-2023-53565 is a medium-severity 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:
wifi: brcmfmac: Check for probe() id argument being NULL
The probe() id argument may be NULL in 2 scenarios:
1. brcmf_pcie_pm_leave_D3() calling brcmf_pcie_probe() to reprobe the device.
2. If a user tries to manually bind the driver from sysfs then the sdio / pcie / usb probe() function gets called with NULL as id argument.
1. Is being hit by users causing the following oops on resume and causing wifi to stop working:
BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000018 <snip> Hardware name: Dell Inc. XPS 13 9350/0PWNCR, BIDS 1.13.0 02/10/2020 Workgueue: events_unbound async_run_entry_fn RIP: 0010:brcmf_pcie_probe+Ox16b/0x7a0 [brcmfmac] <snip> Call Trace: <TASK> brcmf_pcie_pm_leave_D3+0xc5/8x1a0 [brcmfmac be3b4cefca451e190fa35be8f00db1bbec293887] ? pci_pm_resume+0x5b/0xf0 ? pci_legacy_resume+0x80/0x80 dpm_run_callback+0x47/0x150 device_resume+0xa2/0x1f0 async_resume+0x1d/0x30 <snip>
Fix this by checking for id being NULL.
In the PCI and USB cases try a manual lookup of the id so that manually binding the driver through sysfs and more importantly brcmf_pcie_probe() on resume will work.
For the SDIO case there is no helper to do a manual sdio_device_id lookup, so just directly error out on a NULL id there.
Weakness: CWE-476
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53565?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2023-53565?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2023-53565 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53565 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2023-53565, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53565, GHSA-5hv8-xrrg-hm72, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53565.