Linux Kernel up to 5.15.114/6.1.30/6.3.4 bpf memory leak

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, has been found in Linux Kernel up to 5.15.114/6.1.30/6.3.4. This affects an unknown function of the component bpf. This manipulation causes memory leak. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2023-54033. There is no exploit available. It is advisable to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability has been found in Linux Kernel up to 5.15.114/6.1.30/6.3.4 and classified as critical. Affected by this vulnerability is an unknown functionality of the component bpf. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a memory leak vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-401. The product does not sufficiently track and release allocated memory after it has been used, which slowly consumes remaining memory. As an impact it is known to affect availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf: fix a memory leak in the LRU and LRU_PERCPU hash maps The LRU and LRU_PERCPU maps allocate a new element on update before locking the target hash table bucket. Right after that the maps try to lock the bucket. If this fails, then maps return -EBUSY to the caller without releasing the allocated element. This makes the element untracked: it doesn't belong to either of free lists, and it doesn't belong to the hash table, so can't be re-used; this eventually leads to the permanent -ENOMEM on LRU map updates, which is unexpected. Fix this by returning the element to the local free list if bucket locking fails.

The advisory is shared at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2023-54033 since 12/24/2025. The exploitation appears to be easy. Neither technical details nor an exploit are publicly available.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 279914 (Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2023-54033), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 5.15.115, 6.1.31 or 6.3.5 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 79ea1a12fb9a8275b6e19d4ca625dd872dedcbb9/1a9e80f757bbb1562d82e350afce2bb2f712cc3d/965e9cccbe6b9c7b379908cebcb5e3a47f20dd5e/b34ffb0c6d23583830f9327864b9c1f486003305 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 (279914) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2025-2920). If you want to get the best quality for vulnerability data then you always have to consider VulDB.

Affected

• Open Source Linux Kernel

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 5.15.114
• 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
• 6.3.0
• 6.3.1
• 6.3.2
• 6.3.3
• 6.3.4

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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