CVE-2023-53581 net/mlx5e: Check for NOT_READY flag state after locking

What is CVE-2023-53581?

CVE-2023-53581 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:

net/mlx5e: Check for NOT_READY flag state after locking

Currently the check for NOT_READY flag is performed before obtaining the necessary lock. This opens a possibility for race condition when the flow is concurrently removed from unready_flows list by the workqueue task, which causes a double-removal from the list and a crash[0]. Fix the issue by moving the flag check inside the section protected by uplink_priv->unready_flows_lock mutex.

[0]: [44376.389654] general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdead000000000108: 0000 [#1] SMP [44376.391665] CPU: 7 PID: 59123 Comm: tc Not tainted 6.4.0-rc4+ #1 [44376.392984] Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS rel-1.13.0-0-gf21b5a4aeb02-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 [44376.395342] RIP: 0010:mlx5e_tc_del_fdb_flow+0xb3/0x340 [mlx5_core] [44376.396857] Code: 00 48 8b b8 68 ce 02 00 e8 8a 4d 02 00 4c 8d a8 a8 01 00 00 4c 89 ef e8 8b 79 88 e1 48 8b 83 98 06 00 00 48 8b 93 90 06 00 00 <48> 89 42 08 48 89 10 48 b8 00 01 00 00 00 00 ad de 48 89 83 90 06 [44376.399167] RSP: 0018:ffff88812cc97570 EFLAGS: 00010246 [44376.399680] RAX: dead000000000122 RBX: ffff8881088e3800 RCX: ffff8881881bac00 [44376.400337] RDX: dead000000000100 RSI: ffff88812cc97500 RDI: ffff8881242f71b0 [44376.401001] RBP: ffff88811cbb0940 R08: 0000000000000400 R09: 0000000000000001 [44376.401663] R10: 0000000000000001 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: ffff88812c944000 [44376.402342] R13: ffff8881242f71a8 R14: ffff8881222b4000 R15: 0000000000000000 [44376.402999] FS: 00007f0451104800(0000) GS:ffff88852cb80000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [44376.403787] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [44376.404343] CR2: 0000000000489108 CR3: 0000000123a79003 CR4: 0000000000370ea0 [44376.405004] DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 [44376.405665] DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 [44376.406339] Call Trace: [44376.406651] <TASK> [44376.406939] ? die_addr+0x33/0x90 [44376.407311] ? exc_general_protection+0x192/0x390 [44376.407795] ? asm_exc_general_protection+0x22/0x30 [44376.408292] ? mlx5e_tc_del_fdb_flow+0xb3/0x340 [mlx5_core] [44376.408876] __mlx5e_tc_del_fdb_peer_flow+0xbc/0xe0 [mlx5_core] [44376.409482] mlx5e_tc_del_flow+0x42/0x210 [mlx5_core] [44376.410055] mlx5e_flow_put+0x25/0x50 [mlx5_core] [44376.410529] mlx5e_delete_flower+0x24b/0x350 [mlx5_core] [44376.411043] tc_setup_cb_reoffload+0x22/0x80 [44376.411462] fl_reoffload+0x261/0x2f0 [cls_flower] [44376.411907] ? mlx5e_rep_indr_setup_ft_cb+0x160/0x160 [mlx5_core] [44376.412481] ? mlx5e_rep_indr_setup_ft_cb+0x160/0x160 [mlx5_core] [44376.413044] tcf_block_playback_offloads+0x76/0x170 [44376.413497] tcf_block_unbind+0x7b/0xd0 [44376.413881] tcf_block_setup+0x17d/0x1c0 [44376.414269] tcf_block_offload_cmd.isra.0+0xf1/0x130 [44376.414725] tcf_block_offload_unbind+0x43/0x70 [44376.415153] __tcf_block_put+0x82/0x150 [44376.415532] ingress_destroy+0x22/0x30 [sch_ingress] [44376.415986] qdisc_destroy+0x3b/0xd0 [44376.416343] qdisc_graft+0x4d0/0x620 [44376.416706] tc_get_qdisc+0x1c9/0x3b0 [44376.417074] rtnetlink_rcv_msg+0x29c/0x390 [44376.419978] ? rep_movs_alternative+0x3a/0xa0 [44376.420399] ? rtnl_calcit.isra.0+0x120/0x120 [44376.420813] netlink_rcv_skb+0x54/0x100 [44376.421192] netlink_unicast+0x1f6/0x2c0 [44376.421573] netlink_sendmsg+0x232/0x4a0 [44376.421980] sock_sendmsg+0x38/0x60 [44376.422328] ____sys_sendmsg+0x1d0/0x1e0 [44376.422709] ? copy_msghdr_from_user+0x6d/0xa0 [44376.423127] ___sys_sendmsg+0x80/0xc0 [44376.423495] ? ___sys_recvmsg+0x8b/0xc0 [44376.423869] __sys_sendmsg+0x51/0x90 [44376.424226] do_syscall_64+0x3d/0x90 [44376.424587] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x46/0xb0 [44376.425046] RIP: 0033:0x7f045134f887 [44376.425403] Code: 0a 00 f7 d8 64 89 02 48 c7 c0 ff ff ff ff eb b9 0f 1f 00 f3 0f 1e fa 64 8b 04 25 18 00 00 00 85 c0 75 10 b8 2e 00 ---truncated---

Weakness: CWE-362

Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53581?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2023-53581?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2023-53581 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53581 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 BELL-CVE-2023-53581, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53581, GHSA-r2h4-q9gr-p93h, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53581.