CVE-2023-53200

netfilter: x_tables: fix percpu counter block leak on error path when creating new netns

State
Published
Severity
Not scored
Published
Sep 15, 2025
Updated
May 11, 2026
Reserved
Sep 15, 2025

Read the record on cve.org

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

netfilter: x_tables: fix percpu counter block leak on error path when creating new netns

Here is the stack where we allocate percpu counter block:

+-< __alloc_percpu +-< xt_percpu_counter_alloc +-< find_check_entry # {arp,ip,ip6}_tables.c +-< translate_table

And it can be leaked on this code path:

+-> ip6t_register_table +-> translate_table # allocates percpu counter block +-> xt_register_table # fails

there is no freeing of the counter block on xt_register_table fail. Note: xt_percpu_counter_free should be called to free it like we do in do_replace through cleanup_entry helper (or in __ip6t_unregister_table).

Probability of hitting this error path is low AFAICS (xt_register_table can only return ENOMEM here, as it is not replacing anything, as we are creating new netns, and it is hard to imagine that all previous allocations succeeded and after that one in xt_register_table failed). But it's worth fixing even the rare leak.

Scores

The record has no CVSS score.

Weaknesses

The record names no weakness.

Affected Products

ProductVersions
LinuxLinux
  • 71ae0dff02d756e4d2ca710b79f2ff5390029a5f to before e306dbee4c98025a9326386023a12ef4d887e9d1Affected
  • 71ae0dff02d756e4d2ca710b79f2ff5390029a5f to before 512b6c4b83c91d007301ea7d7f095d16c3aceacdAffected
  • 71ae0dff02d756e4d2ca710b79f2ff5390029a5f to before 3cc9610a87b7dde82f7360dd4eb6c2c27940ed57Affected
  • 71ae0dff02d756e4d2ca710b79f2ff5390029a5f to before 0af8c09c896810879387decfba8c942994bb61f5Affected
LinuxLinux
  • 4.2Affected
  • before 4.2Not affected
  • 5.15.100 through 5.15.*Not affected
  • 6.1.18 through 6.1.*Not affected
  • 6.2.5 through 6.2.*Not affected
  • 6.3 and laterNot affected

References

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