What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2023-53153: wifi: cfg80211: Fix use after free for wext

• Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2025-09-15 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-416

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: cfg80211: Fix use after free for wext Key information in wext.connect is not reset on (re)connect and can hold data from a previous connection. Reset key data to avoid that drivers or mac80211 incorrectly detect a WEP connection request and access the freed or already reused memory. Additionally optimize cfg80211_sme_connect() and avoid an useless schedule of conn_work.

Affected products

• Linux kernel: from 2.6.32 before 4.14.308; from 4.15 before 4.19.276; from 4.20 before 5.4.235; from 5.5 before 5.10.173; from 5.11 before 5.15.99; from 5.16 before 6.1.16 — fixed in 4.14.308, 4.19.276, 5.10.173, 5.15.99, 5.4.235, 6.1.16

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 4.14.308, 4.19.276, 5.10.173, 5.15.99. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/015b8cc5e7c4d7bb671f1984d7b7338c310b185b
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/22dfb21bf1cd876616d45cda1bc6daa89eec6747
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2cfe78619b0de6d2da773978bc2d22797212eaa7
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/66af4a2ab1d65d556d638cb9555a3b823c2557a9
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6f1959c17d4cb5b74af6fc31dc787e1dc3e4f6e2
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a2a92b3e9d8e03ee3f9ee407fc46a9b4bd02d8b6
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f4b6a138efb8a32507b8946104e32cb926308da7
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fd081afd21eb35b968b0330700c43ec94986e1c4

Get alerted when CVE-2023-53153 or the next vulnerability affects your stack