CVE-2023-53602 wifi: ath11k: fix memory leak in WMI firmware stats
A memory leak in the ath11k Wi-Fi driver allows attackers to cause a denial of service by exhausting kernel memory during module removal.
- 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-2023-53602?
CVE-2023-53602 is a medium-severity denial of service 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: ath11k: fix memory leak in WMI firmware stats
Memory allocated for firmware pdev, vdev and beacon statistics are not released during rmmod.
Fix it by calling ath11k_fw_stats_free() function before hardware unregister.
While at it, avoid calling ath11k_fw_stats_free() while processing the firmware stats received in the WMI event because the local list is getting spliced and reinitialised and hence there are no elements in the list after splicing.
Tested-on: QCN9074 hw1.0 PCI WLAN.HK.2.7.0.1-01744-QCAHKSWPL_SILICONZ-1
Weakness: CWE-401
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53602?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2023-53602?
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-2023-53602 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53602 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2023-53602, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53602, GHSA-mc2x-3vpx-wfrg, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2023-53602, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2023-53602, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53602.