CVE-2023-53850 iavf: use internal state to free traffic IRQs
A race condition in the iavf driver causes IRQ leaks when closing the network device during reset, potentially leading to resource exhaustion and denial of service.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2023-53850?
CVE-2023-53850 is a denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 9 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:
iavf: use internal state to free traffic IRQs
If the system tries to close the netdev while iavf_reset_task() is running, __LINK_STATE_START will be cleared and netif_running() will return false in iavf_reinit_interrupt_scheme(). This will result in iavf_free_traffic_irqs() not being called and a leak as follows:
[7632.489326] remove_proc_entry: removing non-empty directory 'irq/999', leaking at least 'iavf-enp24s0f0v0-TxRx-0' [7632.490214] WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 10 at fs/proc/generic.c:718 remove_proc_entry+0x19b/0x1b0
is shown when pci_disable_msix() is later called. Fix by using the internal adapter state. The traffic IRQs will always exist if state == __IAVF_RUNNING.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53850?
How do I fix CVE-2023-53850?
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-2023-53850 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53850 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2023-53850, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53850, GHSA-hcp8-qjrp-6pgh, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2023-53850, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2023-53850, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53850.