CVE-2023-54131 wifi: rt2x00: Fix memory leak when handling surveys
A memory leak in the Linux kernel rt2x00 Wi-Fi driver allows local attackers to cause denial of service by exhausting kernel memory.
- 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-2023-54131?
CVE-2023-54131 is a 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:
wifi: rt2x00: Fix memory leak when handling surveys
When removing a rt2x00 device, its associated channel surveys are not freed, causing a memory leak observable with kmemleak:
unreferenced object 0xffff9620f0881a00 (size 512): comm "systemd-udevd", pid 2290, jiffies 4294906974 (age 33.768s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 70 44 12 00 00 00 00 00 92 8a 00 00 00 00 00 00 pD.............. 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ab 87 01 00 00 00 00 00 ................ backtrace: [<ffffffffb0ed858b>] __kmalloc+0x4b/0x130 [<ffffffffc1b0f29b>] rt2800_probe_hw+0xc2b/0x1380 [rt2800lib] [<ffffffffc1a9496e>] rt2800usb_probe_hw+0xe/0x60 [rt2800usb] [<ffffffffc1ae491a>] rt2x00lib_probe_dev+0x21a/0x7d0 [rt2x00lib] [<ffffffffc1b3b83e>] rt2x00usb_probe+0x1be/0x980 [rt2x00usb] [<ffffffffc05981e2>] usb_probe_interface+0xe2/0x310 [usbcore] [<ffffffffb13be2d5>] really_probe+0x1a5/0x410 [<ffffffffb13be5c8>] __driver_probe_device+0x78/0x180 [<ffffffffb13be6fe>] driver_probe_device+0x1e/0x90 [<ffffffffb13be972>] __driver_attach+0xd2/0x1c0 [<ffffffffb13bbc57>] bus_for_each_dev+0x77/0xd0 [<ffffffffb13bd2a2>] bus_add_driver+0x112/0x210 [<ffffffffb13bfc6c>] driver_register+0x5c/0x120 [<ffffffffc0596ae8>] usb_register_driver+0x88/0x150 [usbcore] [<ffffffffb0c011c4>] do_one_initcall+0x44/0x220 [<ffffffffb0d6134c>] do_init_module+0x4c/0x220
Fix this by freeing the channel surveys on device removal.
Tested with a RT3070 based USB wireless adapter.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-54131?
How do I fix CVE-2023-54131?
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-2023-54131 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-54131 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2023-54131, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-54131, GHSA-v5xj-7363-557x, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54131.