Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/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-2023-53204 is a medium-severity Race Condition (CWE-362) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 4.7 (Medium).
Operationally, ranked at the 2th 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-2023-59879
Vulnerability Data
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: af_unix: Fix data-races around user->unix_inflight. user->unix_inflight is changed under spin_lock(unix_gc_lock), but too_many_unix_fds() reads it locklessly. Let's annotate the write/read accesses to user->unix_inflight. BUG: KCSAN: data-race in unix_attach_fds / unix_inflight write…
more
to 0xffffffff8546f2d0 of 8 bytes by task 44798 on cpu 1: unix_inflight+0x157/0x180 net/unix/scm.c:66 unix_attach_fds+0x147/0x1e0 net/unix/scm.c:123 unix_scm_to_skb net/unix/af_unix.c:1827 [inline] unix_dgram_sendmsg+0x46a/0x14f0 net/unix/af_unix.c:1950 unix_seqpacket_sendmsg net/unix/af_unix.c:2308 [inline] unix_seqpacket_sendmsg+0xba/0x130 net/unix/af_unix.c:2292 sock_sendmsg_nosec net/socket.c:725 [inline] sock_sendmsg+0x148/0x160 net/socket.c:748 ____sys_sendmsg+0x4e4/0x610 net/socket.c:2494 ___sys_sendmsg+0xc6/0x140 net/socket.c:2548 __sys_sendmsg+0x94/0x140 net/socket.c:2577 __do_sys_sendmsg net/socket.c:2586 [inline] __se_sys_sendmsg net/socket.c:2584 [inline] __x64_sys_sendmsg+0x45/0x50 net/socket.c:2584 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 [inline] do_syscall_64+0x3b/0x90 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x6e/0xd8 read to 0xffffffff8546f2d0 of 8 bytes by task 44814 on cpu 0: too_many_unix_fds net/unix/scm.c:101 [inline] unix_attach_fds+0x54/0x1e0 net/unix/scm.c:110 unix_scm_to_skb net/unix/af_unix.c:1827 [inline] unix_dgram_sendmsg+0x46a/0x14f0 net/unix/af_unix.c:1950 unix_seqpacket_sendmsg net/unix/af_unix.c:2308 [inline] unix_seqpacket_sendmsg+0xba/0x130 net/unix/af_unix.c:2292 sock_sendmsg_nosec net/socket.c:725 [inline] sock_sendmsg+0x148/0x160 net/socket.c:748 ____sys_sendmsg+0x4e4/0x610 net/socket.c:2494 ___sys_sendmsg+0xc6/0x140 net/socket.c:2548 __sys_sendmsg+0x94/0x140 net/socket.c:2577 __do_sys_sendmsg net/socket.c:2586 [inline] __se_sys_sendmsg net/socket.c:2584 [inline] __x64_sys_sendmsg+0x45/0x50 net/socket.c:2584 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 [inline] do_syscall_64+0x3b/0x90 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x6e/0xd8 value changed: 0x000000000000000c -> 0x000000000000000d Reported by Kernel Concurrency Sanitizer on: CPU: 0 PID: 44814 Comm: systemd-coredum Not tainted 6.4.0-11989-g6843306689af #6 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.16.0-0-gd239552ce722-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
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 (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.
A.8.25 mandates secure SDLC practices (secure coding guidelines, security requirements, checkpoints, testing including code scans/penetration tests, developer training) that reach race conditions in concurrent code, but only as one slice of a broad requirement whose implementation scope and rigour are left to the organisation.
A.8.26 explicitly lists resilience against malicious attacks including SQL injections and input validation as application security requirements to identify/address; race conditions are a similar class of timing-based concurrency flaw that can be mitigated by requirements for proper synchronization/locking, but this is only one slice of the broad CWE-362 class (most instances arise in low-level shared-memory or TOCTOU scenarios not named here).
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.
Security testing can detect race conditions, but does not prevent them at design or coding time.
Hardening callouts derived
DISA STIG baselines are authored against specific weaknesses. Where this CVE cites a broad weakness class, the mapping is not asserted at that abstraction (owner ruling, 2026-09-25: grade only at Base and below), so no rule is shown here rather than a rule shown against the wrong grain.
- No fine-grained STIG row for CWE-362, a class-level weakness, and none of its children carries one either.