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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2023-53224 json

ext4: Fix function prototype mismatch for ext4_feat_ktype

published 2025-09-15 13 mo ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2023-59860

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 5%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

ext4: Fix function prototype mismatch for ext4_feat_ktype

With clang's kernel control flow integrity (kCFI, CONFIG_CFI_CLANG), indirect call targets are validated against the expected function pointer prototype to make sure the call target is valid to help mitigate ROP attacks. If they are not identical, there is a failure at run time, which manifests as either a kernel panic or thread getting killed.

ext4_feat_ktype was setting the "release" handler to "kfree", which doesn't have a matching function prototype. Add a simple wrapper with the correct prototype.

This was found as a result of Clang's new -Wcast-function-type-strict flag, which is more sensitive than the simpler -Wcast-function-type, which only checks for type width mismatches.

Note that this code is only reached when ext4 is a loadable module and it is being unloaded:

CFI failure at kobject_put+0xbb/0x1b0 (target: kfree+0x0/0x180; expected type: 0x7c4aa698) ... RIP: 0010:kobject_put+0xbb/0x1b0 ... Call Trace: <TASK> ext4_exit_sysfs+0x14/0x60 [ext4] cleanup_module+0x67/0xedb [ext4]

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 4.19.274, 5.4.233, 5.10.170, 5.15.96, 6.1.14, 6.2.1, 6.3
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 6.1.15-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53224

  • linux Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-149.166
  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-72.79
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1102.110
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1036.40
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1105.114
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1034.42
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1033.38
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1049.54

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53224

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 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-2023-53224 updated cvss 4.1

kernel: ext4: Fix function prototype mismatch for ext4_feat_ktype

  • 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 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 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 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
9 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.16% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 5% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CISA ADP 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA 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-401 Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime
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.