CVE-2023-53768 regmap-irq: Fix out-of-bounds access when allocating config buffers
A logic error in the Linux kernel's regmap-irq driver causes out-of-bounds memory writes, leading to system crashes and 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-2023-53768?
CVE-2023-53768 is a high-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux, published on 8 Dec 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:
regmap-irq: Fix out-of-bounds access when allocating config buffers
When allocating the 2D array for handling IRQ type registers in regmap_add_irq_chip_fwnode(), the intent is to allocate a matrix with num_config_bases rows and num_config_regs columns.
This is currently handled by allocating a buffer to hold a pointer for each row (i.e. num_config_bases). After that, the logic attempts to allocate the memory required to hold the register configuration for each row. However, instead of doing this allocation for each row (i.e. num_config_bases allocations), the logic erroneously does this allocation num_config_regs number of times.
This scenario can lead to out-of-bounds accesses when num_config_regs is greater than num_config_bases. Fix this by updating the terminating condition of the loop that allocates the memory for holding the register configuration to allocate memory only for each row in the matrix.
Amit Pundir reported a crash that was occurring on his db845c device due to memory corruption (see "Closes" tag for Amit's report). The KASAN report below helped narrow it down to this issue:
[ 14.033877][ T1] ================================================================== [ 14.042507][ T1] BUG: KASAN: invalid-access in regmap_add_irq_chip_fwnode+0x594/0x1364 [ 14.050796][ T1] Write of size 8 at addr 06ffff8081021850 by task init/1
[ 14.242004][ T1] The buggy address belongs to the object at ffffff8081021850 [ 14.242004][ T1] which belongs to the cache kmalloc-8 of size 8 [ 14.255669][ T1] The buggy address is located 0 bytes inside of [ 14.255669][ T1] 8-byte region [ffffff8081021850, ffffff8081021858)
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53768?
How do I fix CVE-2023-53768?
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-2023-53768 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53768 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2023-53768, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53768, GHSA-x59p-mm6w-2vq3, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53768.