Skip to content
Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2023-0240 json

Use after free in io_uring in the Linux Kernel

published 2023-01-30 3 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2023-12324

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.3%
EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 19%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

There is a logic error in io_uring's implementation which can be used to trigger a use-after-free vulnerability leading to privilege escalation.

In the io_prep_async_work function the assumption that the last io_grab_identity call cannot return false is not true, and in this case the function will use the init_cred or the previous linked requests identity to do operations instead of using the current identity. This can lead to reference counting issues causing use-after-free. We recommend upgrading past version 5.10.161.

Patch / fix

  • linux linux_kernel 5.10
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 5.14.6-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2023-0240

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2023-0240 updated cvss 7.8

kernel: io_uring: reference counting issue in io_prep_async_work leads to use-after-free

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
2 y ago

Exploit prediction

0.27% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 19% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux Kernel
  • linux linux_kernel

Classification

Weakness
Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.