Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.4.3. It has been rated as critical. This affects the function rq_qos_exit. The manipulation leads to initialization. This vulnerability is referenced as CVE-2023-53823. No exploit is available. Upgrading the affected component is advised.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.4.3 and classified as critical. This issue affects the function rq_qos_exit. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a initialization vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-665. The product does not initialize or incorrectly initializes a resource, which might leave the resource in an unexpected state when it is accessed or used. The impact remains unknown. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: block/rq_qos: protect rq_qos apis with a new lock commit 50e34d78815e ("block: disable the elevator int del_gendisk") move rq_qos_exit() from disk_release() to del_gendisk(), this will introduce some problems: 1) If rq_qos_add() is triggered by enabling iocost/iolatency through cgroupfs, then it can concurrent with del_gendisk(), it's not safe to write 'q->rq_qos' concurrently. 2) Activate cgroup policy that is relied on rq_qos will call rq_qos_add() and blkcg_activate_policy(), and if rq_qos_exit() is called in the middle, null-ptr-dereference will be triggered in blkcg_activate_policy(). 3) blkg_conf_open_bdev() can call blkdev_get_no_open() first to find the disk, then if rq_qos_exit() from del_gendisk() is done before rq_qos_add(), then memory will be leaked. This patch add a new disk level mutex 'rq_qos_mutex': 1) The lock will protect rq_qos_exit() directly. 2) For wbt that doesn't relied on blk-cgroup, rq_qos_add() can only be called from disk initialization for now because wbt can't be destructed until rq_qos_exit(), so it's safe not to protect wbt for now. Hoever, in case that rq_qos dynamically destruction is supported in the furture, this patch also protect rq_qos_add() from wbt_init() directly, this is enough because blk-sysfs already synchronize writers with disk removal. 3) For iocost and iolatency, in order to synchronize disk removal and cgroup configuration, the lock is held after blkdev_get_no_open() from blkg_conf_open_bdev(), and is released in blkg_conf_exit(). In order to fix the above memory leak, disk_live() is checked after holding the new lock.

The advisory is shared at git.kernel.org. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2023-53823 since 12/09/2025. Technical details are known, but no exploit is available. The price for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 03/30/2026).

Upgrading to version 6.4.4 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 16398b4638b5cd8c1dc95fc940a1591a801d53ce/a13bd91be22318768d55470cbc0b0f4488ef9edf is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at git.kernel.org. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

The vulnerability is also documented in the vulnerability database at CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-2765). Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

Affected

• Debian Linux
• Amazon Linux 2
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Ubuntu Linux
• SUSE Linux
• Oracle Linux
• SUSE openSUSE
• Open Source Linux Kernel
• RESF Rocky Linux

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 6.4.0
• 6.4.1
• 6.4.2
• 6.4.3

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

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Entryinfo

Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

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