CVE-2023-53781

smc: Fix use-after-free in tcp_write_timer_handler().

State
Published
Severity
7.8 High
Published
Dec 9, 2025
Updated
Oct 30, 2026
Reserved
Dec 8, 2025

Read the record on cve.org

Description

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

smc: Fix use-after-free in tcp_write_timer_handler().

With Eric's ref tracker, syzbot finally found a repro for use-after-free in tcp_write_timer_handler() by kernel TCP sockets. [0]

If SMC creates a kernel socket in __smc_create(), the kernel socket is supposed to be freed in smc_clcsock_release() by calling sock_release() when we close() the parent SMC socket.

However, at the end of smc_clcsock_release(), the kernel socket's sk_state might not be TCP_CLOSE. This means that we have not called inet_csk_destroy_sock() in __tcp_close() and have not stopped the TCP timers.

The kernel socket's TCP timers can be fired later, so we need to hold a refcnt for net as we do for MPTCP subflows in mptcp_subflow_create_socket().

[0]: leaked reference. sk_alloc (./include/net/net_namespace.h:335 net/core/sock.c:2108) inet_create (net/ipv4/af_inet.c:319 net/ipv4/af_inet.c:244) __sock_create (net/socket.c:1546) smc_create (net/smc/af_smc.c:3269 net/smc/af_smc.c:3284) __sock_create (net/socket.c:1546) __sys_socket (net/socket.c:1634 net/socket.c:1618 net/socket.c:1661) __x64_sys_socket (net/socket.c:1672) do_syscall_64 (arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80) entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe (arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:120) ================================================================== BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in tcp_write_timer_handler (net/ipv4/tcp_timer.c:378 net/ipv4/tcp_timer.c:624 net/ipv4/tcp_timer.c:594) Read of size 1 at addr ffff888052b65e0d by task syzrepro/18091

CPU: 0 PID: 18091 Comm: syzrepro Tainted: G W 6.3.0-rc4-01174-gb5d54eb5899a #7 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.16.0-1.amzn2022.0.1 04/01/2014 Call Trace: <IRQ> dump_stack_lvl (lib/dump_stack.c:107) print_report (mm/kasan/report.c:320 mm/kasan/report.c:430) kasan_report (mm/kasan/report.c:538) tcp_write_timer_handler (net/ipv4/tcp_timer.c:378 net/ipv4/tcp_timer.c:624 net/ipv4/tcp_timer.c:594) tcp_write_timer (./include/linux/spinlock.h:390 net/ipv4/tcp_timer.c:643) call_timer_fn (./arch/x86/include/asm/jump_label.h:27 ./include/linux/jump_label.h:207 ./include/trace/events/timer.h:127 kernel/time/timer.c:1701) __run_timers.part.0 (kernel/time/timer.c:1752 kernel/time/timer.c:2022) run_timer_softirq (kernel/time/timer.c:2037) __do_softirq (./arch/x86/include/asm/jump_label.h:27 ./include/linux/jump_label.h:207 ./include/trace/events/irq.h:142 kernel/softirq.c:572) __irq_exit_rcu (kernel/softirq.c:445 kernel/softirq.c:650) irq_exit_rcu (kernel/softirq.c:664) sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt (arch/x86/kernel/apic/apic.c:1107 (discriminator 14)) </IRQ>

Scores

CVSSScoreVectorSource
3.17.8 HighCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HLinux

Weaknesses

The record names no weakness.

Affected Products

ProductVersions
LinuxLinux
  • ac7138746e14137a451f8539614cdd349153e0c0 to before 08f057bd1e559cdb388c77b18de3eea3d3d8cb24Affected
  • ac7138746e14137a451f8539614cdd349153e0c0 to before 1cc41c8acfc1ee30b4868559058db97fa44b0137Affected
  • ac7138746e14137a451f8539614cdd349153e0c0 to before 9744d2bf19762703704ecba885b7ac282c02eacfAffected
LinuxLinux
  • 4.11Affected
  • before 4.11Not affected
  • 6.1.191 through 6.1.*Not affected
  • 6.2.12 through 6.2.*Not affected
  • 6.3 and laterNot affected

References

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