CVE-2023-53199: Linux Kernel

Medium severity, CVSS 5.5. EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: ath9k: hif_usb: clean up skbs if ath9k_hif_usb_rx_stream() fails Syzkaller detected a memory leak of skbs in ath9k_hif_usb_rx_stream(). While processing skbs in ath9k_hif_usb_rx_stream(), the already allocated skbs in skb_pool are not freed if ath9k_hif_usb_rx_stream() fails. If we have an incorrect pkt_len or pkt_tag, the input skb is considered invalid and dropped. All the associated packets already in skb_pool should be dropped and freed. Added a comment describing this issue. The patch also makes remain_skb NULL after being processed so that it cannot be referenced after potential free. The initialization of hif_dev fields which are associated with remain_skb (rx_remain_len, rx_transfer_len and rx_pad_len) is moved after a new remain_skb is allocated. Found by Linux Verification Center (linuxtesting.org) with Syzkaller.

Affected products

• Linux Linux Kernel: from 2.6.38, before 4.19.276 (fixed in 4.19.276); from 4.20, before 5.4.235 (fixed in 5.4.235); from 5.5, before 5.10.173 (fixed in 5.10.173); from 5.11, before 5.15.99 (fixed in 5.15.99); from 5.16, before 6.1.16 (fixed in 6.1.16); from 6.2, before 6.2.3 (fixed in 6.2.3)

Published 2025-09-15. Last modified 2026-06-17.