CVE-2023-53574 wifi: rtw88: delete timer and free skb queue when unloading

What is CVE-2023-53574?

CVE-2023-53574 is a medium-severity memory corruption 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: rtw88: delete timer and free skb queue when unloading

Fix possible crash and memory leak on driver unload by deleting TX purge timer and freeing C2H queue in 'rtw_core_deinit()', shrink critical section in the latter by freeing COEX queue out of TX report lock scope.

Weakness: CWE-401

Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53574?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2023-53574?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade to the fixed version. Memory-safe languages, compiler hardening and fuzzing prevent most new cases. More about Memory corruption.

Is CVE-2023-53574 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53574 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 AZL-76770, BELL-CVE-2023-53574, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53574, GHSA-2mm9-p89h-xj5v, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2023-53574, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2023-53574 and 3 more.