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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2023-53089 json

ext4: fix task hung in ext4_xattr_delete_inode

published 2025-05-02 18 mo ago modified 2026-11-05 3 d ago also EUVD-2025-13160

cvss
5.5
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 10%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

ext4: fix task hung in ext4_xattr_delete_inode

Syzbot reported a hung task problem: ================================================================== INFO: task syz-executor232:5073 blocked for more than 143 seconds. Not tainted 6.2.0-rc2-syzkaller-00024-g512dee0c00ad #0 "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. task:syz-exec232 state:D stack:21024 pid:5073 ppid:5072 flags:0x00004004 Call Trace: <TASK> context_switch kernel/sched/core.c:5244 [inline] __schedule+0x995/0xe20 kernel/sched/core.c:6555 schedule+0xcb/0x190 kernel/sched/core.c:6631 __wait_on_freeing_inode fs/inode.c:2196 [inline] find_inode_fast+0x35a/0x4c0 fs/inode.c:950 iget_locked+0xb1/0x830 fs/inode.c:1273 __ext4_iget+0x22e/0x3ed0 fs/ext4/inode.c:4861 ext4_xattr_inode_iget+0x68/0x4e0 fs/ext4/xattr.c:389 ext4_xattr_inode_dec_ref_all+0x1a7/0xe50 fs/ext4/xattr.c:1148 ext4_xattr_delete_inode+0xb04/0xcd0 fs/ext4/xattr.c:2880 ext4_evict_inode+0xd7c/0x10b0 fs/ext4/inode.c:296 evict+0x2a4/0x620 fs/inode.c:664 ext4_orphan_cleanup+0xb60/0x1340 fs/ext4/orphan.c:474 __ext4_fill_super fs/ext4/super.c:5516 [inline] ext4_fill_super+0x81cd/0x8700 fs/ext4/super.c:5644 get_tree_bdev+0x400/0x620 fs/super.c:1282 vfs_get_tree+0x88/0x270 fs/super.c:1489 do_new_mount+0x289/0xad0 fs/namespace.c:3145 do_mount fs/namespace.c:3488 [inline] __do_sys_mount fs/namespace.c:3697 [inline] __se_sys_mount+0x2d3/0x3c0 fs/namespace.c:3674 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:50 [inline] do_syscall_64+0x3d/0xb0 arch/x86/entry/common.c:80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd RIP: 0033:0x7fa5406fd5ea RSP: 002b:00007ffc7232f968 EFLAGS: 00000202 ORIG_RAX: 00000000000000a5 RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 0000000000000003 RCX: 00007fa5406fd5ea RDX: 0000000020000440 RSI: 0000000020000000 RDI: 00007ffc7232f970 RBP: 00007ffc7232f970 R08: 00007ffc7232f9b0 R09: 0000000000000432 R10: 0000000000804a03 R11: 0000000000000202 R12: 0000000000000004 R13: 0000555556a7a2c0 R14: 00007ffc7232f9b0 R15: 0000000000000000 </TASK> ==================================================================

The problem is that the inode contains an xattr entry with ea_inum of 15 when cleaning up an orphan inode <15>. When evict inode <15>, the reference counting of the corresponding EA inode is decreased. When EA inode <15> is found by find_inode_fast() in __ext4_iget(), it is found that the EA inode holds the I_FREEING flag and waits for the EA inode to complete deletion. As a result, when inode <15> is being deleted, we wait for inode <15> to complete the deletion, resulting in an infinite loop and triggering Hung Task. To solve this problem, we only need to check whether the ino of EA inode and parent is the same before getting EA inode.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 4.14.311, 4.19.279, 5.4.238, 5.10.176, 5.15.104, 6.1.21, 6.2.8, 6.3
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 6.1.25-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53089

  • linux Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-156.173
  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-79.86
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1107.115
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1042.47
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1110.119
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1039.47
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1039.44
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1054.59

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53089

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 RHEL 8 4.18.0-553.el8_10
  • perf RHEL 8 4.18.0-553.el8_10
  • bpftool RHEL 8 4.18.0-553.el8_10
  • kernel-core RHEL 8 4.18.0-553.el8_10
  • kernel-tools RHEL 8 4.18.0-553.el8_10
  • python3-perf RHEL 8 4.18.0-553.el8_10
  • kernel-modules RHEL 8 4.18.0-553.el8_10
  • kernel-zfcpdump RHEL 8 4.18.0-553.el8_10

red hat advisories RHSA-2024:3138RHSA-2023:6583

  • kernel-64kb SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-ESPOS 5.14.21-150400.24.167.1
  • kernel-syms SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS +3 more 5.14.21-150400.24.167.1
  • kernel-source SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS +3 more 5.14.21-150400.24.167.1
  • kernel-default SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.4 +7 more 5.14.21-150400.24.167.1
  • kernel-zfcpdump SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, Manager Server 4.3 5.14.21-150400.24.167.1
  • kernel-obs-build SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS +1 more 5.14.21-150400.24.167.1
  • kernel-default-base SLES for SAP 15 SP4, SLES 15 SP4-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.4 +5 more 5.14.21-150400.24.167.1.150400.24.84.1
  • kernel-64kb SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS 5.14.21-150500.55.110.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:02262-1SUSE-SU-2025:02173-1SUSE-SU-2025:01966-1SUSE-SU-2025:01918-1

  • kernel Rocky Linux 8 4.18.0-553.123.1.el8_10.cloud.0.1

rocky linux advisories RXSA-2024:3138

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-2023-53089 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: ext4: fix task hung in ext4_xattr_delete_inode

  • 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 kernel-rt, kernel-rt-kvm, kernel-rt-core, kernel-rt-modules, kernel-rt-debug-kvm, kernel-rt-debug-core, +6 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux BaseOS (v. 8) perf 4.18.0-553.el8_10, kernel 4.18.0-553.el8_10, bpftool 4.18.0-553.el8_10, kernel-core 4.18.0-553.el8_10, kernel-tools 4.18.0-553.el8_10, python3-perf 4.18.0-553.el8_10, +15 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux CRB (v. 8) kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64 4.18.0-553.el8_10, kernel-debuginfo-common-aarch64 4.18.0-553.el8_10, kernel-debuginfo-common-ppc64le 4.18.0-553.el8_10
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2024:3138
  • 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

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
3 d ago

Exploit prediction

0.20% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 10% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-835 Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition
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.