CVE-2023-53119
Linux Kernel 4.14.303 – 4.14.311
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2023-53119 is a medium-severity Use of Uninitialized Resource (CWE-908) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 5.5 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique OS Credential Dumping (T1003); ranked at the 10th 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
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2025-13152
Vulnerability Data
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nfc: pn533: initialize struct pn533_out_arg properly struct pn533_out_arg used as a temporary context for out_urb is not initialized properly. Its uninitialized 'phy' field can be dereferenced in error cases inside…
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pn533_out_complete() callback function. It causes the following failure: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000000: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000000-0x0000000000000007] CPU: 1 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/1 Not tainted 6.2.0-rc3-next-20230110-syzkaller #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 10/26/2022 RIP: 0010:pn533_out_complete.cold+0x15/0x44 drivers/nfc/pn533/usb.c:441 Call Trace: <IRQ> __usb_hcd_giveback_urb+0x2b6/0x5c0 drivers/usb/core/hcd.c:1671 usb_hcd_giveback_urb+0x384/0x430 drivers/usb/core/hcd.c:1754 dummy_timer+0x1203/0x32d0 drivers/usb/gadget/udc/dummy_hcd.c:1988 call_timer_fn+0x1da/0x800 kernel/time/timer.c:1700 expire_timers+0x234/0x330 kernel/time/timer.c:1751 __run_timers kernel/time/timer.c:2022 [inline] __run_timers kernel/time/timer.c:1995 [inline] run_timer_softirq+0x326/0x910 kernel/time/timer.c:2035 __do_softirq+0x1fb/0xaf6 kernel/softirq.c:571 invoke_softirq kernel/softirq.c:445 [inline] __irq_exit_rcu+0x123/0x180 kernel/softirq.c:650 irq_exit_rcu+0x9/0x20 kernel/softirq.c:662 sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt+0x97/0xc0 arch/x86/kernel/apic/apic.c:1107 Initialize the field with the pn533_usb_phy currently used. Found by Linux Verification Center (linuxtesting.org) with Syzkaller.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Developer testing and evaluation (including static analysis) can find uses of uninitialized resources after they are coded.
Requiring documented development standards and tools can mandate initialization checks and safe patterns that stop the weakness from being introduced.
Engineering principles can require explicit resource initialization before use, structurally avoiding uninitialized access.
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.
Secure SDLC activities such as static analysis and code review directly prevent use of uninitialized resources while also addressing many other weaknesses.
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.