CVE-2023-53672 btrfs: output extra debug info if we failed to find an inline backref

What is CVE-2023-53672?

CVE-2023-53672 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 7 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:

btrfs: output extra debug info if we failed to find an inline backref

[BUG] Syzbot reported several warning triggered inside lookup_inline_extent_backref().

[CAUSE] As usual, the reproducer doesn't reliably trigger locally here, but at least we know the WARN_ON() is triggered when an inline backref can not be found, and it can only be triggered when @insert is true. (I.e. inserting a new inline backref, which means the backref should already exist)

[ENHANCEMENT] After the WARN_ON(), dump all the parameters and the extent tree leaf to help debug.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53672?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2023-53672?

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-2023-53672 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53672 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-2023-53672, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53672, GHSA-vgqm-7wmp-qp26, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53672.