Skip to content
Fencer Vulns
high 7.5

CVE-2023-53606 json

nfsd: clean up potential nfsd_file refcount leaks in COPY codepath

published 2025-10-04 13 mo ago modified 2026-10-15 24 d ago also EUVD-2025-32260

cvss
7.5
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 21%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

nfsd: clean up potential nfsd_file refcount leaks in COPY codepath

There are two different flavors of the nfsd4_copy struct. One is embedded in the compound and is used directly in synchronous copies. The other is dynamically allocated, refcounted and tracked in the client struture. For the embedded one, the cleanup just involves releasing any nfsd_files held on its behalf. For the async one, the cleanup is a bit more involved, and we need to dequeue it from lists, unhash it, etc.

There is at least one potential refcount leak in this code now. If the kthread_create call fails, then both the src and dst nfsd_files in the original nfsd4_copy object are leaked.

The cleanup in this codepath is also sort of weird. In the async copy case, we'll have up to four nfsd_file references (src and dst for both flavors of copy structure). They are both put at the end of nfsd4_do_async_copy, even though the ones held on behalf of the embedded one outlive that structure.

Change it so that we always clean up the nfsd_file refs held by the embedded copy structure before nfsd4_copy returns. Rework cleanup_async_copy to handle both inter and intra copies. Eliminate nfsd4_cleanup_intra_ssc since it now becomes a no-op.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.10.220, 5.15.154, 6.1.16, 6.2.3, 6.3
  • linux Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 6.1.20-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53606

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-116.126
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1065.71
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1064.72
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1062.68
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1058.61
  • linux-kvm Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1062.67
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1068.77
  • linux-gkeop Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1048.55

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53606

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 9 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2
  • perf RHEL 9 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2
  • rtla RHEL 9 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2
  • bpftool RHEL 9 7.0.0-284.11.1.el9_2
  • kernel-64k RHEL 9 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2
  • kernel-core RHEL 9 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2
  • kernel-tools RHEL 9 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2
  • python3-perf RHEL 9 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2

red hat advisories RHSA-2023:2458

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-2023-53606 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: nfsd: clean up potential nfsd_file refcount leaks in COPY codepath

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • 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 kernel-rt, kernel-rt-kvm, kernel-rt-core, kernel-rt-modules, kernel-rt-debug-kvm, kernel-rt-debug-core, +12 more
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux AppStream (v. 9) perf 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, rtla 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, kernel-devel-matched 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, kernel-64k-devel-matched 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, kernel-debug-devel-matched 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, kernel-debuginfo-common-s390x 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, +5 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux BaseOS (v. 9) bpftool 7.0.0-284.11.1.el9_2, kernel 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, kernel-64k 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, kernel-core 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, kernel-tools 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, python3-perf 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, +28 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux CRB (v. 9) kernel-debuginfo-common-s390x 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, kernel-debuginfo-common-x86_64 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, kernel-debuginfo-common-aarch64 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2, kernel-debuginfo-common-ppc64le 5.14.0-284.11.1.el9_2
    fixed: vendor fix RHSA-2023:2458
  • 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
yes
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
24 d ago

Exploit prediction

0.29% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 21% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/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

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

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.