Security Resilience

CVE-2023-52610

Linux Kernel 5.3 – 5.15.148

Published
18 March 2024
Modified
04 August 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 7.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0064 50th percentile
Risk Priority 58 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2023-52610 is a high-severity Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime (CWE-401) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Junk Data (T1001.001); ranked at the 50th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SA-15 (Development Process, Standards, and Tools) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/sched: act_ct: fix skb leak and crash on ooo frags act_ct adds skb->users before defragmentation. If frags arrive in order, the last frag's reference is reset in: inet_frag_reasm_prepare skb_morph which…

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is not straightforward. However when frags arrive out of order, nobody unref the last frag, and all frags are leaked. The situation is even worse, as initiating packet capture can lead to a crash[0] when skb has been cloned and shared at the same time. Fix the issue by removing skb_get() before defragmentation. act_ct returns TC_ACT_CONSUMED when defrag failed or in progress. [0]: [ 843.804823] ------------[ cut here ]------------ [ 843.809659] kernel BUG at net/core/skbuff.c:2091! [ 843.814516] invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP [ 843.819296] CPU: 7 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/7 Kdump: loaded Tainted: G S 6.7.0-rc3 #2 [ 843.824107] Hardware name: XFUSION 1288H V6/BC13MBSBD, BIOS 1.29 11/25/2022 [ 843.828953] RIP: 0010:pskb_expand_head+0x2ac/0x300 [ 843.833805] Code: 8b 70 28 48 85 f6 74 82 48 83 c6 08 bf 01 00 00 00 e8 38 bd ff ff 8b 83 c0 00 00 00 48 03 83 c8 00 00 00 e9 62 ff ff ff 0f 0b <0f> 0b e8 8d d0 ff ff e9 b3 fd ff ff 81 7c 24 14 40 01 00 00 4c 89 [ 843.843698] RSP: 0018:ffffc9000cce07c0 EFLAGS: 00010202 [ 843.848524] RAX: 0000000000000002 RBX: ffff88811a211d00 RCX: 0000000000000820 [ 843.853299] RDX: 0000000000000640 RSI: 0000000000000000 RDI: ffff88811a211d00 [ 843.857974] RBP: ffff888127d39518 R08: 00000000bee97314 R09: 0000000000000000 [ 843.862584] R10: 0000000000000000 R11: ffff8881109f0000 R12: 0000000000000880 [ 843.867147] R13: ffff888127d39580 R14: 0000000000000640 R15: ffff888170f7b900 [ 843.871680] FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff889ffffc0000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [ 843.876242] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [ 843.880778] CR2: 00007fa42affcfb8 CR3: 000000011433a002 CR4: 0000000000770ef0 [ 843.885336] DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 [ 843.889809] DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 [ 843.894229] PKRU: 55555554 [ 843.898539] Call Trace: [ 843.902772] <IRQ> [ 843.906922] ? __die_body+0x1e/0x60 [ 843.911032] ? die+0x3c/0x60 [ 843.915037] ? do_trap+0xe2/0x110 [ 843.918911] ? pskb_expand_head+0x2ac/0x300 [ 843.922687] ? do_error_trap+0x65/0x80 [ 843.926342] ? pskb_expand_head+0x2ac/0x300 [ 843.929905] ? exc_invalid_op+0x50/0x60 [ 843.933398] ? pskb_expand_head+0x2ac/0x300 [ 843.936835] ? asm_exc_invalid_op+0x1a/0x20 [ 843.940226] ? pskb_expand_head+0x2ac/0x300 [ 843.943580] inet_frag_reasm_prepare+0xd1/0x240 [ 843.946904] ip_defrag+0x5d4/0x870 [ 843.950132] nf_ct_handle_fragments+0xec/0x130 [nf_conntrack] [ 843.953334] tcf_ct_act+0x252/0xd90 [act_ct] [ 843.956473] ? tcf_mirred_act+0x516/0x5a0 [act_mirred] [ 843.959657] tcf_action_exec+0xa1/0x160 [ 843.962823] fl_classify+0x1db/0x1f0 [cls_flower] [ 843.966010] ? skb_clone+0x53/0xc0 [ 843.969173] tcf_classify+0x24d/0x420 [ 843.972333] tc_run+0x8f/0xf0 [ 843.975465] __netif_receive_skb_core+0x67a/0x1080 [ 843.978634] ? dev_gro_receive+0x249/0x730 [ 843.981759] __netif_receive_skb_list_core+0x12d/0x260 [ 843.984869] netif_receive_skb_list_internal+0x1cb/0x2f0 [ 843.987957] ? mlx5e_handle_rx_cqe_mpwrq_rep+0xfa/0x1a0 [mlx5_core] [ 843.991170] napi_complete_done+0x72/0x1a0 [ 843.994305] mlx5e_napi_poll+0x28c/0x6d0 [mlx5_core] [ 843.997501] __napi_poll+0x25/0x1b0 [ 844.000627] net_rx_action+0x256/0x330 [ 844.003705] __do_softirq+0xb3/0x29b [ 844.006718] irq_exit_rcu+0x9e/0xc0 [ 844.009672] common_interrupt+0x86/0xa0 [ 844.012537] </IRQ> [ 844.015285] <TASK> [ 844.017937] asm_common_interrupt+0x26/0x40 [ 844.020591] RIP: 0010:acpi_safe_halt+0x1b/0x20 [ 844.023247] Code: ff 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 0f 1f 40 00 65 48 8b 04 25 00 18 03 00 48 8b 00 a8 08 75 0c 66 90 0f 00 2d 81 d0 44 00 fb ---truncated---

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1001.001 Junk Data Command And Control
Adversaries may add junk data to protocols used for command and control to make detection more difficult.
T1001.002 Steganography Command And Control
Adversaries may use steganographic techniques to hide command and control traffic to make detection efforts more difficult.
T1001.003 Protocol or Service Impersonation Command And Control
Adversaries may impersonate legitimate protocols or web service traffic to disguise command and control activity and thwart analysis efforts.
T1003 OS Credential Dumping Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to dump credentials to obtain account login and credential material, normally in the form of a hash or a clear text password.
T1003.001 LSASS Memory Credential Access
Adversaries may attempt to access credential material stored in the process memory of the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS).
T1003.004 LSA Secrets Credential Access
Adversaries with SYSTEM access to a host may attempt to access Local Security Authority (LSA) secrets, which can contain a variety of different credential materials, such as credentials for service accounts.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

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CVE-2023-53682Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2026-64139Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2023-52989Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2023-52698Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2024-26912Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2026-23022Same product: Linux Linux Kernel

Affected Assets

linux
linux kernel
5.3 — 5.15.148 · 5.16 — 6.1.75 · 6.2 — 6.6.14

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and evaluation (static analysis, fuzzing, or runtime leak detection) directly finds missing deallocation.

Requiring documented development standards and tools can mandate memory-management disciplines that avoid leaks at introduction.

Engineering principles applied during development can require explicit resource-release patterns that stop memory leaks from being coded.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 partial match
blocks

Secure SDLC practices directly enforce proper memory allocation/deallocation via coding standards, reviews, and tooling.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

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References