CVE-2023-53224

ext4: Fix function prototype mismatch for ext4_feat_ktype

State
Published
Severity
5.5 Medium
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:

ext4: Fix function prototype mismatch for ext4_feat_ktype

With clang's kernel control flow integrity (kCFI, CONFIG_CFI_CLANG), indirect call targets are validated against the expected function pointer prototype to make sure the call target is valid to help mitigate ROP attacks. If they are not identical, there is a failure at run time, which manifests as either a kernel panic or thread getting killed.

ext4_feat_ktype was setting the "release" handler to "kfree", which doesn't have a matching function prototype. Add a simple wrapper with the correct prototype.

This was found as a result of Clang's new -Wcast-function-type-strict flag, which is more sensitive than the simpler -Wcast-function-type, which only checks for type width mismatches.

Note that this code is only reached when ext4 is a loadable module and it is being unloaded:

CFI failure at kobject_put+0xbb/0x1b0 (target: kfree+0x0/0x180; expected type: 0x7c4aa698) ... RIP: 0010:kobject_put+0xbb/0x1b0 ... Call Trace: <TASK> ext4_exit_sysfs+0x14/0x60 [ext4] cleanup_module+0x67/0xedb [ext4]

Scores

CVSSScoreVectorSource
3.15.5 MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HCISA-ADP

Weaknesses

  • CWE-401 Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime

Affected Products

ProductVersions
LinuxLinux
  • b99fee58a20ab8e0557cce87b6f187e325993142 to before 2b69cdd9f9a7f596e3dd31f05f9852940d177924Affected
  • b99fee58a20ab8e0557cce87b6f187e325993142 to before 99e3fd21f8fc975c95e8cf76fbf6a3d2656f8f71Affected
  • b99fee58a20ab8e0557cce87b6f187e325993142 to before 1ba10d3640e9783dad811fe4e24d55465c37c64dAffected
  • b99fee58a20ab8e0557cce87b6f187e325993142 to before c98077f7598a562f51051eec043be0cb3e1b1b5eAffected
  • b99fee58a20ab8e0557cce87b6f187e325993142 to before 0a1394e07c5d6bf1bfc25db8589ff1b1bfb6f46aAffected
  • b99fee58a20ab8e0557cce87b6f187e325993142 to before 94d8de83286fb1827340eba35b61c308f6b46eadAffected
  • b99fee58a20ab8e0557cce87b6f187e325993142 to before 118901ad1f25d2334255b3d50512fa20591531cdAffected
LinuxLinux
  • 4.16Affected
  • before 4.16Not affected
  • 4.19.274 through 4.19.*Not affected
  • 5.4.233 through 5.4.*Not affected
  • 5.10.170 through 5.10.*Not affected
  • 5.15.96 through 5.15.*Not affected
  • 6.1.14 through 6.1.*Not affected
  • 6.2.1 through 6.2.*Not affected
  • 6.3 and laterNot affected

References

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