CVE-2023-54243: netfilter: ebtables: fix table blob use-after-free

Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2025-12-30 · updated 2026-10-15

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: netfilter: ebtables: fix table blob use-after-free We are not allowed to return an error at this point. Looking at the code it looks like ret is always 0 at this point, but its not. t = find_table_lock(net, repl->name, &ret, &ebt_mutex); ... this can return a valid table, with ret != 0. This bug causes update of table->private with the new blob, but then frees the blob right away in the caller. Syzbot report: BUG: KASAN: vmalloc-out-of-bounds in __ebt_unregister_table+0xc00/0xcd0 net/bridge/netfilter/ebtables.c:1168 Read of size 4 at addr ffffc90005425000 by task kworker/u4:4/74 Workqueue: netns cleanup_net Call Trace: kasan_report+0xbf/0x1f0 mm/kasan/report.c:517 __ebt_unregister_table+0xc00/0xcd0 net/bridge/netfilter/ebtables.c:1168 ebt_unregister_table+0x35/0x40 net/bridge/netfilter/ebtables.c:1372 ops_exit_list+0xb0/0x170 net/core/net_namespace.c:169 cleanup_net+0x4ee/0xb10 net/core/net_namespace.c:613 ... ip(6)tables appears to be ok (ret should be 0 at this point) but make this more obvious.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 3.2.60 before 3.3; from 3.4.91 before 3.5; from 3.10.41 before 3.11; from 3.12.21 before 3.13; from 3.14.5 before 3.15; 3.15 — fixed in 3.11, 3.13, 3.15, 3.3, 3.5, 6.3

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 3.11, 3.13, 3.15, 3.3. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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