CVE-2023-54201 RDMA/efa: Fix wrong resources deallocation order
A use-after-free vulnerability in the Linux kernel RDMA EFA driver allows attackers to cause a denial of service via refcount underflow.
- 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
What is CVE-2023-54201?
CVE-2023-54201 is a high-severity use after free vulnerability in Linux, published on 30 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:
RDMA/efa: Fix wrong resources deallocation order
When trying to destroy QP or CQ, we first decrease the refcount and potentially free memory regions allocated for the object and then request the device to destroy the object. If the device fails, the object isn't fully destroyed so the user/IB core can try to destroy the object again which will lead to underflow when trying to decrease an already zeroed refcount.
Deallocate resources in reverse order of allocating them to safely free them.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-54201?
How do I fix CVE-2023-54201?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade to the fixed version. These bugs are found with fuzzing and sanitisers and avoided by memory-safe languages. More about Use after free.
Is CVE-2023-54201 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-54201 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2023-54201, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-54201, GHSA-25gx-7w99-7j35, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2023-54201, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2023-54201, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54201.