Summaryinfo

A vulnerability has been found in Linux Kernel up to 5.10.187/5.15.120/6.1.38/6.3.12/6.4.3 and classified as critical. This affects the function itimer_delete. Performing a manipulation results in infinite loop. This vulnerability is cataloged as CVE-2023-53815. There is no exploit available. The affected component should be upgraded.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical has been found in Linux Kernel up to 5.10.187/5.15.120/6.1.38/6.3.12/6.4.3. This affects the function itimer_delete. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a infinite loop vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-835. The product contains an iteration or loop with an exit condition that cannot be reached, i.e., an infinite loop. This is going to have an impact on availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: posix-timers: Prevent RT livelock in itimer_delete() itimer_delete() has a retry loop when the timer is concurrently expired. On non-RT kernels this just spin-waits until the timer callback has completed, except for posix CPU timers which have HAVE_POSIX_CPU_TIMERS_TASK_WORK enabled. In that case and on RT kernels the existing task could live lock when preempting the task which does the timer delivery. Replace spin_unlock() with an invocation of timer_wait_running() to handle it the same way as the other retry loops in the posix timer code.

It is possible to read the advisory at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2023-53815 since 12/09/2025. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 278098 (Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2023-53815), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 5.10.188, 5.15.121, 6.1.39, 6.3.13 or 6.4.4 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch f1be1ed32daa053484222f7f9beb2b16c624dffd/0670c4c567b27bd8f999a943028f4fe60d1a1106/e7aff15ba29ba4b3052786b1636fa5c4aa39e179/f9bd298e3e4d3fd6e19f017789a42d0f332cd555/c1968bb8a28625cc95d2ad3ca872ab98c9c36d59/9d9e522010eb5685d8b53e8a24320653d9d4cbbf 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 (278098) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-2765). Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for 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

• 5.10.187
• 5.15.120
• 6.1.0
• 6.1.1
• 6.1.2
• 6.1.3
• 6.1.4
• 6.1.5
• 6.1.6
• 6.1.7
• 6.1.8
• 6.1.9
• 6.1.10
• 6.1.11
• 6.1.12
• 6.1.13
• 6.1.14
• 6.1.15
• 6.1.16
• 6.1.17
• 6.1.18
• 6.1.19
• 6.1.20
• 6.1.21
• 6.1.22
• 6.1.23
• 6.1.24
• 6.1.25
• 6.1.26
• 6.1.27
• 6.1.28
• 6.1.29
• 6.1.30
• 6.1.31
• 6.1.32
• 6.1.33
• 6.1.34
• 6.1.35
• 6.1.36
• 6.1.37
• 6.1.38
• 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/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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