Linux Kernel up to 6.3.12/6.4.3 drm_dev use after free

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, has been found in Linux Kernel up to 6.3.12/6.4.3. Affected is the function drm_dev. This manipulation causes use after free. This vulnerability appears as CVE-2023-53851. There is no available exploit. It is advisable to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability has been found in Linux Kernel up to 6.3.12/6.4.3 and classified as critical. Affected by this vulnerability is the function drm_dev. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a use after free vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-416. Referencing memory after it has been freed can cause a program to crash, use unexpected values, or execute code. As an impact it is known to affect confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm/msm/dp: Drop aux devices together with DP controller Using devres to depopulate the aux bus made sure that upon a probe deferral the EDP panel device would be destroyed and recreated upon next attempt. But the struct device which the devres is tied to is the DPUs (drm_dev->dev), which may be happen after the DP controller is torn down. Indications of this can be seen in the commonly seen EDID-hexdump full of zeros in the log, or the occasional/rare KASAN fault where the panel's attempt to read the EDID information causes a use after free on DP resources. It's tempting to move the devres to the DP controller's struct device, but the resources used by the device(s) on the aux bus are explicitly torn down in the error path. The KASAN-reported use-after-free also remains, as the DP aux "module" explicitly frees its devres-allocated memory in this code path. As such, explicitly depopulate the aux bus in the error path, and in the component unbind path, to avoid these issues. Patchwork: https://patchwork.freedesktop.org/patch/542163/

The advisory is shared at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2023-53851 since 12/09/2025. The exploitation appears to be easy. 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).

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 277834 (Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2023-53851), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 6.3.13 or 6.4.4 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch e09ed06938807cb113cddd0708ed74bd8cdaff33/2fde37445807e6e6d7981402d0bf1be0e5d81291/a7bfb2ad2184a1fba78be35209b6019aa8cc8d4d 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 databases at Tenable (277834) and 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

• 6.3.0
• 6.3.1
• 6.3.2
• 6.3.3
• 6.3.4
• 6.3.5
• 6.3.6
• 6.3.7
• 6.3.8
• 6.3.9
• 6.3.10
• 6.3.11
• 6.3.12
• 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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