# CVE-2023-54153: ext4: turn quotas off if mount failed after enabling quotas

> A memory leak in the Linux kernel ext4 filesystem occurs when mount fails after enabling quotas, potentially leading to resource exhaustion and denial of service.

- **Severity:** High 7.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** A user has to click or open something
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 24 Dec 2025
- **Updated:** 5 Aug 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2023-54153, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-54153, GHSA-969x-jvv9-7j58, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2023-54153, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54153

## What is CVE-2023-54153?

CVE-2023-54153 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, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.

### Official description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

ext4: turn quotas off if mount failed after enabling quotas

Yi found during a review of the patch "ext4: don't BUG on inconsistent
journal feature" that when ext4_mark_recovery_complete() returns an error
value, the error handling path does not turn off the enabled quotas,
which triggers the following kmemleak:

================================================================
unreferenced object 0xffff8cf68678e7c0 (size 64):
comm "mount", pid 746, jiffies 4294871231 (age 11.540s)
hex dump (first 32 bytes):
00 90 ef 82 f6 8c ff ff 00 00 00 00 41 01 00 00  ............A...
c7 00 00 00 bd 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 48 00 00 00  ............H...
backtrace:
[<00000000c561ef24>] __kmem_cache_alloc_node+0x4d4/0x880
[<00000000d4e621d7>] kmalloc_trace+0x39/0x140
[<00000000837eee74>] v2_read_file_info+0x18a/0x3a0
[<0000000088f6c877>] dquot_load_quota_sb+0x2ed/0x770
[<00000000340a4782>] dquot_load_quota_inode+0xc6/0x1c0
[<0000000089a18bd5>] ext4_enable_quotas+0x17e/0x3a0 [ext4]
[<000000003a0268fa>] __ext4_fill_super+0x3448/0x3910 [ext4]
[<00000000b0f2a8a8>] ext4_fill_super+0x13d/0x340 [ext4]
[<000000004a9489c4>] get_tree_bdev+0x1dc/0x370
[<000000006e723bf1>] ext4_get_tree+0x1d/0x30 [ext4]
[<00000000c7cb663d>] vfs_get_tree+0x31/0x160
[<00000000320e1bed>] do_new_mount+0x1d5/0x480
[<00000000c074654c>] path_mount+0x22e/0xbe0
[<0000000003e97a8e>] do_mount+0x95/0xc0
[<000000002f3d3736>] __x64_sys_mount+0xc4/0x160
[<0000000027d2140c>] do_syscall_64+0x3f/0x90
================================================================

To solve this problem, we add a "failed_mount10" tag, and call
ext4_quota_off_umount() in this tag to release the enabled qoutas.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-54153?


## How do I fix CVE-2023-54153?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2023-54153 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-54153 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2023-54153 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2023-54153 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, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-54153 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-2023-54153/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-54153/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2023-54153
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-54153
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2023-54153

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2023-54153/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.