CVE-2023-54259 soundwire: bus: Fix unbalanced pm_runtime_put() causing usage count underflow
A local attacker can cause a usage count underflow in the Linux kernel soundwire bus, leading to a 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-2023-54259?
CVE-2023-54259 is a denial of service 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:
soundwire: bus: Fix unbalanced pm_runtime_put() causing usage count underflow
This reverts commit 443a98e649b4 ("soundwire: bus: use pm_runtime_resume_and_get()")
Change calls to pm_runtime_resume_and_get() back to pm_runtime_get_sync(). This fixes a usage count underrun caused by doing a pm_runtime_put() even though pm_runtime_resume_and_get() returned an error.
The three affected functions ignore -EACCES error from trying to get pm_runtime, and carry on, including a put at the end of the function. But pm_runtime_resume_and_get() does not increment the usage count if it returns an error. So in the -EACCES case you must not call pm_runtime_put().
The documentation for pm_runtime_get_sync() says: "Consider using pm_runtime_resume_and_get() ... as this is likely to result in cleaner code."
In this case I don't think it results in cleaner code because the pm_runtime_put() at the end of the function would have to be conditional on the return value from pm_runtime_resume_and_get() at the top of the function.
pm_runtime_get_sync() doesn't have this problem because it always increments the count, so always needs a put. The code can just flow through and do the pm_runtime_put() unconditionally.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-54259?
How do I fix CVE-2023-54259?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2023-54259 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2023-54259 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2023-54259, DEBIAN-CVE-2023-54259, GHSA-qq6g-5658-hpx2, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2023-54259, UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54259.