Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2023-53188)

Summary

Vulnerability in Kernel (CVE-2023-53188). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Exploitable via unregister_netdevice_many_notify. Mitigation: upgrade to 5.4.293, 5.10.237, 5.15.181, 6.1.25, 6.2.12 or later.

Original description

The description as published by the source.

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

net: openvswitch: fix race on port output

assume the following setup on a single machine:

An openvswitch instance with one bridge and default flows
two network namespaces "server" and "client"
two ovs interfaces "server" and "client" on the bridge
for each ovs interface a veth pair with a matching name and 32 rx and
tx queues
move the ends of the veth pairs to the respective network namespaces
assign ip addresses to each of the veth ends in the namespaces (needs
to be the same subnet)
start some http server on the server network namespace
test if a client in the client namespace can reach the http server

when following the actions below the host has a chance of getting a cpu
stuck in a infinite loop:

send a large amount of parallel requests to the http server (around
3000 curls should work)
in parallel delete the network namespace (do not delete interfaces or
stop the server, just kill the namespace)

there is a low chance that this will cause the below kernel cpu stuck
message. If this does not happen just retry.
Below there is also the output of bpftrace for the functions mentioned
in the output.

The series of events happening here is:

the network namespace is deleted calling
unregister_netdevice_many_notify somewhere in the process
this sets first NETREG_UNREGISTERING on both ends of the veth and
then runs synchronize_net
it then calls `cal…

Source: OSV.dev (Open Source Vulnerabilities) NVD OSV

Auto-generated summary

Assembled by SecPulse from the source data (CVSS, CWE, affected versions) using templates — no AI involved. Check the original description and references below for exact details.

A vulnerability tracked as CVE-2023-53188 has been found in Kernel.
Attackers can target a specific entry point like unregister_netdevice_many_notify over the network to misuse the product.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade Kernel to 5.4.293, 5.10.237, 5.15.181, 6.1.25, 6.2.12 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "Kernel CVE-2023-53188" on the vendor's site.

CVE-2023-53188 (Kernel)
Attack surface: unregister_netdevice_many_notify / NETREG_UNREGISTERING / synchronize_net / call_netdevice_notifiers
Patched: 5.4.293, 5.10.237, 5.15.181, 6.1.25, 6.2.12 — apply immediately
Plan: 1) Audit SBOM/dependencies, 2) Stage→prod upgrade, 3) Add WAF/proxy monitoring on affected endpoints, 4) Hunt IOCs in logs.
Refs: see the GHSA / vendor advisory / patched release linked on this page.

❓ What is the problem

A vulnerability (unclassified) exists in Kernel. Attackers reach the vulnerable code path via unregister_netdevice_many_notify.

📍 Affected scope

Check the vendor advisory for the affected versions of Kernel. Attack surface: unregister_netdevice_many_notify / NETREG_UNREGISTERING / synchronize_net / call_netdevice_notifiers.

🔥 Severity

Severity: ?. Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.

🔧 How to fix

Update to 5.4.293, 5.10.237, 5.15.181, 6.1.25, 6.2.12.

🛡️ Workaround

Until the patch is applied: disable the affected feature, apply WAF rules, or restrict access via network ACLs.

🔍 Detection

Search webserver/proxy logs for unusual request patterns matching this CVE's known IOCs. Run grep -r 'Kernel' . against your dependency files (package-lock.json, requirements.txt, go.sum) to find affected services.

Response actions

Concrete steps and command examples for SOC/SRE teams to execute in order

1
Identify exposure identify
```
grep -r 'Kernel' . | grep -v node_modules
```
リポジトリと本番環境の依存ファイル (package-lock.json / requirements.txt / go.sum / Gemfile.lock 等) で Kernel を grep し、稼働しているサービス・バージョンを把握する。
2
Apply patch patch
```
Upgrade Kernel to 5.4.293, 5.10.237, 5.15.181, 6.1.25, 6.2.12
```
ステージング環境で 5.4.293, 5.10.237, 5.15.181, 6.1.25, 6.2.12 に上げて回帰テスト → 本番反映。回帰テストはアプリの主要ハッピーパスを含めること。
3
Post-deployment verification verify
```
Confirm patched version is live in production
```
パッチ適用後、ステージングで PoC または同等の悪用パターンを再現して脆弱性が閉じたことを確認。本番ではアクセスログ・WAF でアラート再発が無いか継続監視。

Affected packages

Linux Kernel

[{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"4.3.0"},{"fixed":"5.4.293"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.5.0"},{"fixed":"5.10.237"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.11.0"},{"fixed":"5.15.181"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"5.16.0"},{"fixed":"6.1.25"}]},{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"6.2.0"},{"fixed":"6.2.12"}]}]

Fix status by distribution

Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE

Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2023-53188 linux Fixed in: 5.10.237-1
Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2023-53188 linux-aws