Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HSummary
CVE-2023-53166 is a medium-severity Race Condition (CWE-362) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 4.7 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 1th 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 SC-39 (Process Isolation) and SC-4 (Information in Shared System Resources) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-59810
Vulnerability Data
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: power: supply: bq25890: Fix external_power_changed race bq25890_charger_external_power_changed() dereferences bq->charger, which gets sets in bq25890_power_supply_init() like this: bq->charger = devm_power_supply_register(bq->dev, &bq->desc, &psy_cfg); As soon as devm_power_supply_register() has called device_add() the external_power_changed…
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callback can get called. So there is a window where bq25890_charger_external_power_changed() may get called while bq->charger has not been set yet leading to a NULL pointer dereference. This race hits during boot sometimes on a Lenovo Yoga Book 1 yb1-x90f when the cht_wcove_pwrsrc (extcon) power_supply is done with detecting the connected charger-type which happens to exactly hit the small window: BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000018 <snip> RIP: 0010:__power_supply_is_supplied_by+0xb/0xb0 <snip> Call Trace: <TASK> __power_supply_get_supplier_property+0x19/0x50 class_for_each_device+0xb1/0xe0 power_supply_get_property_from_supplier+0x2e/0x50 bq25890_charger_external_power_changed+0x38/0x1b0 [bq25890_charger] __power_supply_changed_work+0x30/0x40 class_for_each_device+0xb1/0xe0 power_supply_changed_work+0x5f/0xe0 <snip> Fixing this is easy. The external_power_changed callback gets passed the power_supply which will eventually get stored in bq->charger, so bq25890_charger_external_power_changed() can simply directly use the passed in psy argument which is always valid.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Maintaining separate execution domains for each process structurally eliminates unintended concurrent access to the same shared resources.
Preventing unintended information transfer through shared system resources directly addresses the improper concurrent modification that defines a race condition.
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 practices directly require proper synchronization primitives and concurrency testing that prevent race conditions.
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.
Security testing can detect race conditions, but does not prevent them at design or coding time.
Secure SDLC mandates concurrency controls and synchronization primitives that directly prevent race conditions.
Application security requirements can specify thread-safety and locking rules, but do not prescribe implementation details.
Secure architecture principles require proper synchronization and resource isolation, addressing the root cause of CWE-362.
Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe concurrent access patterns and mandate atomic operations or locks.
Change management reduces introduction of concurrency bugs during updates, yet does not address the weakness itself.