CVE-2023-54120 Bluetooth: Fix race condition in hidp_session_thread
A race condition in the Linux kernel Bluetooth HIDP driver can cause a use-after-free, leading to a kernel panic 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-2023-54120?
CVE-2023-54120 is a high-severity 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:
Bluetooth: Fix race condition in hidp_session_thread
There is a potential race condition in hidp_session_thread that may lead to use-after-free. For instance, the timer is active while hidp_del_timer is called in hidp_session_thread(). After hidp_session_put, then 'session' will be freed, causing kernel panic when hidp_idle_timeout is running.
The solution is to use del_timer_sync instead of del_timer.
Here is the call trace:
? hidp_session_probe+0x780/0x780 call_timer_fn+0x2d/0x1e0 __run_timers.part.0+0x569/0x940 hidp_session_probe+0x780/0x780 call_timer_fn+0x1e0/0x1e0 ktime_get+0x5c/0xf0 lapic_next_deadline+0x2c/0x40 clockevents_program_event+0x205/0x320 run_timer_softirq+0xa9/0x1b0 __do_softirq+0x1b9/0x641 __irq_exit_rcu+0xdc/0x190 irq_exit_rcu+0xe/0x20 sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt+0xa1/0xc0
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-54120?
How do I fix CVE-2023-54120?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2023-54120 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-54120 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2023-54120, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-54120, GHSA-732j-jg49-j2pr, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54120.