CVE-2023-53994 ionic: remove WARN_ON to prevent panic_on_warn
A local attacker can trigger a kernel panic in the ionic driver if panic_on_warn is enabled, causing a 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-2023-53994?
CVE-2023-53994 is a denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 24 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:
ionic: remove WARN_ON to prevent panic_on_warn
Remove unnecessary early code development check and the WARN_ON that it uses. The irq alloc and free paths have long been cleaned up and this check shouldn't have stuck around so long.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-53994?
How do I fix CVE-2023-53994?
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-2023-53994 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-53994 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2023-53994, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53994, GHSA-xcjm-pf9x-jpg2, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53994.