# CVE-2023-54065: net: dsa: realtek: fix out-of-bounds access

> Out-of-bounds memory access in the Realtek DSA driver can lead to memory corruption, potentially enabling code execution or system crashes.

- **Severity:** High 7.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`)
- **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:** Yes
- **Published:** 24 Dec 2025
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2023-54065, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-54065, GHSA-gwcx-q2c7-j3r5, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54065

## What is CVE-2023-54065?

CVE-2023-54065 is a high-severity memory corruption 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:

net: dsa: realtek: fix out-of-bounds access

The probe function sets priv->chip_data to (void *)priv + sizeof(*priv)
with the expectation that priv has enough trailing space.

However, only realtek-smi actually allocated this chip_data space.
Do likewise in realtek-mdio to fix out-of-bounds accesses.

These accesses likely went unnoticed so far, because of an (unused)
buf[4096] member in struct realtek_priv, which caused kmalloc to
round up the allocated buffer to a big enough size, so nothing of
value was overwritten. With a different allocator (like in the barebox
bootloader port of the driver) or with KASAN, the memory corruption
becomes quickly apparent.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-54065?


## How do I fix CVE-2023-54065?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2023-54065 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-54065 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2023-54065 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-54065 is a high-severity memory corruption 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.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-54065 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-54065/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-54065/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-54065
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-54065
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-54065

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-54065/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.