Linux Kernel up to 5.15.120/6.1.39/6.4.4 ext4_mark_recovery_complete memory leak

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, has been found in Linux Kernel up to 5.15.120/6.1.39/6.4.4. This issue affects the function ext4_mark_recovery_complete. Performing a manipulation results in memory leak. This vulnerability is cataloged as CVE-2023-54153. There is no exploit available. It is advisable to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 5.15.120/6.1.39/6.4.4. It has been classified as critical. This affects the function ext4_mark_recovery_complete. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a memory leak vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-401. The product does not sufficiently track and release allocated memory after it has been used, which slowly consumes remaining memory. This is going to have an impact on availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ext4: turn quotas off if mount failed after enabling quotas Yi found during a review of the patch "ext4: don't BUG on inconsistent journal feature" that when ext4_mark_recovery_complete() returns an error value, the error handling path does not turn off the enabled quotas, which triggers the following kmemleak: ================================================================ unreferenced object 0xffff8cf68678e7c0 (size 64): comm "mount", pid 746, jiffies 4294871231 (age 11.540s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 00 90 ef 82 f6 8c ff ff 00 00 00 00 41 01 00 00 ............A... c7 00 00 00 bd 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 48 00 00 00 ............H... backtrace: [<00000000c561ef24>] __kmem_cache_alloc_node+0x4d4/0x880 [<00000000d4e621d7>] kmalloc_trace+0x39/0x140 [<00000000837eee74>] v2_read_file_info+0x18a/0x3a0 [<0000000088f6c877>] dquot_load_quota_sb+0x2ed/0x770 [<00000000340a4782>] dquot_load_quota_inode+0xc6/0x1c0 [<0000000089a18bd5>] ext4_enable_quotas+0x17e/0x3a0 [ext4] [<000000003a0268fa>] __ext4_fill_super+0x3448/0x3910 [ext4] [<00000000b0f2a8a8>] ext4_fill_super+0x13d/0x340 [ext4] [<000000004a9489c4>] get_tree_bdev+0x1dc/0x370 [<000000006e723bf1>] ext4_get_tree+0x1d/0x30 [ext4] [<00000000c7cb663d>] vfs_get_tree+0x31/0x160 [<00000000320e1bed>] do_new_mount+0x1d5/0x480 [<00000000c074654c>] path_mount+0x22e/0xbe0 [<0000000003e97a8e>] do_mount+0x95/0xc0 [<000000002f3d3736>] __x64_sys_mount+0xc4/0x160 [<0000000027d2140c>] do_syscall_64+0x3f/0x90 ================================================================ To solve this problem, we add a "failed_mount10" tag, and call ext4_quota_off_umount() in this tag to release the enabled qoutas.

It is possible to read the advisory at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2023-54153 since 12/24/2025. The exploitability is told to be difficult. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 279770 (Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2023-54153), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 5.15.121, 6.1.40 or 6.4.5 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch c327b83c59ee938792a0300df646efac39c7d6a7/deef86fa3005cbb61ae8aa5729324c09b3f4ba73/77c3ca1108eb4a26db4f256c42b271a430cebc7d/d13f99632748462c32fc95d729f5e754bab06064 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 (279770) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-2929). Be aware that VulDB is the high quality source for vulnerability data.

Affected

• Open Source Linux Kernel

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 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
• 6.1.39
• 6.4.0
• 6.4.1
• 6.4.2
• 6.4.3
• 6.4.4

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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Entryinfo

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