medium 5.5

CVE-2023-53667 json

net: cdc_ncm: Deal with too low values of dwNtbOutMaxSize

published 2025-10-07 13 mo ago modified 2026-11-05 3 d ago also EUVD-2025-31951

cvss: 5.5; version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.1%; EPSS 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 4%
public exploits: 0; none known

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

Currently in cdc_ncm_check_tx_max(), if dwNtbOutMaxSize is lower than the calculated "min" value, but greater than zero, the logic sets tx_max to dwNtbOutMaxSize. This is then used to allocate a new SKB in cdc_ncm_fill_tx_frame() where all the data is handled.

For small values of dwNtbOutMaxSize the memory allocated during alloc_skb(dwNtbOutMaxSize, GFP_ATOMIC) will have the same size, due to how size is aligned at alloc time: size = SKB_DATA_ALIGN(size); size += SKB_DATA_ALIGN(sizeof(struct skb_shared_info)); Thus we hit the same bug that we tried to squash with commit 2be6d4d16a084 ("net: cdc_ncm: Allow for dwNtbOutMaxSize to be unset or zero")

Low values of dwNtbOutMaxSize do not cause an issue presently because at alloc_skb() time more memory (512b) is allocated than required for the SKB headers alone (320b), leaving some space (512b - 320b = 192b) for CDC data (172b).

However, if more elements (for example 3 x u64 = [24b]) were added to one of the SKB header structs, say 'struct skb_shared_info', increasing its original size (320b [320b aligned]) to something larger (344b [384b aligned]), then suddenly the CDC data (172b) no longer fits in the spare SKB data area (512b - 384b = 128b).

Consequently the SKB bounds checking semantics fails and panics:

skbuff: skb_over_panic: text:ffffffff831f755b len:184 put:172 head:ffff88811f1c6c00 data:ffff88811f1c6c00 tail:0xb8 end:0x80 dev:<NULL> ------------[ cut here ]------------ kernel BUG at net/core/skbuff.c:113! invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN CPU: 0 PID: 57 Comm: kworker/0:2 Not tainted 5.15.106-syzkaller-00249-g19c0ed55a470 #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 04/14/2023 Workqueue: mld mld_ifc_work RIP: 0010:skb_panic net/core/skbuff.c:113 [inline] RIP: 0010:skb_over_panic+0x14c/0x150 net/core/skbuff.c:118 [snip] Call Trace: <TASK> skb_put+0x151/0x210 net/core/skbuff.c:2047 skb_put_zero include/linux/skbuff.h:2422 [inline] cdc_ncm_ndp16 drivers/net/usb/cdc_ncm.c:1131 [inline] cdc_ncm_fill_tx_frame+0x11ab/0x3da0 drivers/net/usb/cdc_ncm.c:1308 cdc_ncm_tx_fixup+0xa3/0x100

Deal with too low values of dwNtbOutMaxSize, clamp it in the range [USB_CDC_NCM_NTB_MIN_OUT_SIZE, CDC_NCM_NTB_MAX_SIZE_TX]. We ensure enough data space is allocated to handle CDC data by making sure dwNtbOutMaxSize is not smaller than USB_CDC_NCM_NTB_MIN_OUT_SIZE.

Patch / fix

fixed in 1 distros 3 links 8

Linux Linux 4.14.317, 4.19.285, 5.4.245, 5.10.181, 5.15.114, 6.1.31, 6.3.5, 6.4

debian ubuntu suse

linux Debian 12 6.1.37-1
linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.3.7-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53667

linux Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-162.179
linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-83.92
linux-aws Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1109.118
linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1044.49
linux-gcp Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1112.121
linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1041.49
linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1041.46
linux-ibm Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 5.4.0-1056.61

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53667

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 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
kernel-syms SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS +1 more 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
kernel-source SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.5 +2 more 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
kernel-default SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.5 +3 more 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
kernel-obs-build SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS +1 more 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1
kernel-default-base SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.5 +2 more 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1.150500.6.61.1
kernel-rt SLE Micro 5.5 5.14.21-150500.13.112.1
kernel-source-rt SLE Micro 5.5 5.14.21-150500.13.112.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2025:4320-1 SUSE-SU-2025:4189-1 SUSE-SU-2025:4149-1 SUSE-SU-2025:4139-1 SUSE-SU-2025:4111-1

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-2023-53667 updated 2026-11-05 cvss 6.2

kernel: net: cdc_ncm: Deal with too low values of dwNtbOutMaxSize

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 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more
affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
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 (2026-11-05)

Exploit prediction

0.15% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 4% 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-476 NULL Pointer Dereference

Technology feeds

Linux kernel rss critical rss

References

Sources

CVE List CVE-2023-53667
NVD CVE-2023-53667

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.

Summary