Vulnerability Database

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Total vulnerabilities in the database

CVE-2023-53281 — linux / linux_kernel

Improper Locking

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

drivers: staging: rtl8723bs: Fix locking in _rtw_join_timeout_handler()

Commit 041879b12ddb ("drivers: staging: rtl8192bs: Fix deadlock in rtw_joinbss_event_prehandle()") besides fixing the deadlock also modified rtw_join_timeout_handler() to use spin[un]lock_irq() instead of spin_[un]lock_bh().

rtw_join_timeout_handler() calls rtw_do_join() which takes pmlmepriv->scanned_queue.lock using spin[un]lock_bh(). This spin_unlock_bh() call re-enables softirqs which triggers an oops in kernel/softirq.c: __local_bh_enable_ip() when it calls lockdep_assert_irqs_enabled():

[ 244.506087] WARNING: CPU: 2 PID: 0 at kernel/softirq.c:376 __local_bh_enable_ip+0xa6/0x100 ... [ 244.509022] Call Trace: [ 244.509048] <IRQ> [ 244.509100] _rtw_join_timeout_handler+0x134/0x170 [r8723bs] [ 244.509468] ? __pfx__rtw_join_timeout_handler+0x10/0x10 [r8723bs] [ 244.509772] ? __pfx__rtw_join_timeout_handler+0x10/0x10 [r8723bs] [ 244.510076] call_timer_fn+0x95/0x2a0 [ 244.510200] __run_timers.part.0+0x1da/0x2d0

This oops is causd by the switch to spin_[un]lock_irq() which disables the IRQs for the entire duration of _rtw_join_timeout_handler().

Disabling the IRQs is not necessary since all code taking this lock runs from either user contexts or from softirqs, switch back to spin_[un]lock_bh() to fix this.

  • Published: Sep 16, 2025
  • Updated: Dec 3, 2025
  • CVE: CVE-2023-53281
  • Severity: Medium
  • Exploit:
  • CISA KEV:

CVSS v3:

  • Severity: Medium
  • Score: 5.5
  • AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CWEs:

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