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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2023-53000 json

netlink: prevent potential spectre v1 gadgets

published 2025-03-27 19 mo ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2023-59720

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 12%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

netlink: prevent potential spectre v1 gadgets

Most netlink attributes are parsed and validated from __nla_validate_parse() or validate_nla()

u16 type = nla_type(nla);

if (type == 0 || type > maxtype) { /* error or continue */ }

@type is then used as an array index and can be used as a Spectre v1 gadget.

array_index_nospec() can be used to prevent leaking content of kernel memory to malicious users.

This should take care of vast majority of netlink uses, but an audit is needed to take care of others where validation is not yet centralized in core netlink functions.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.4.231, 5.10.166, 5.15.91, 6.1.9, 6.2
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 6.1.11-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53000

  • linux Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-147.164
  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-70.77
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1100.108
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1034.38
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1103.112
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1032.40
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1031.36
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1047.52

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53000

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel-64kb SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS, Enterprise Storage 7.1 5.3.18-150300.59.201.1
  • kernel-syms SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.201.1
  • kernel-source SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.201.1
  • kernel-default SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.2 +5 more 5.3.18-150300.59.201.1
  • kernel-preempt SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.201.1
  • kernel-obs-build SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS +1 more 5.3.18-150300.59.201.1
  • kernel-default-base SLES for SAP 15 SP3, SLES 15 SP3-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.2 +3 more 5.3.18-150300.59.201.1.150300.18.120.1
  • kernel-64kb SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS 5.14.21-150500.55.100.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:02099-1SUSE-SU-2025:1293-1SUSE-SU-2025:1263-1SUSE-SU-2025:1241-1SUSE-SU-2025:1195-1SUSE-SU-2025:1194-1

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-2023-53000 updated cvss 2.5

kernel: netlink: prevent potential spectre v1 gadgets

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    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

Exploit prediction

0.22% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 12% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
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

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-129 Improper Validation of Array Index
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.