CVE-2023-53072 | mptcp: use the workqueue to destroy unaccepted sockets

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mptcp: use the workqueue to destroy unaccepted sockets Christoph reported a UaF at token lookup time after having refactored the passive socket initialization part: BUG: KASAN: use-after-free in __token_bucket_busy+0x253/0x260 Read of size 4 at addr ffff88810698d5b0 by task syz-executor653/3198 CPU: 1 PID: 3198 Comm: syz-executor653 Not tainted 6.2.0-rc59af4eaa31c1f6c00c8f1e448ed99a45c66340dd5 #6 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS rel-1.13.0-0-gf21b5a4aeb02-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 Call Trace: <TASK> dump_stack_lvl+0x6e/0x91 print_report+0x16a/0x46f kasan_report+0xad/0x130 __token_bucket_busy+0x253/0x260 mptcp_token_new_connect+0x13d/0x490 mptcp_connect+0x4ed/0x860 __inet_stream_connect+0x80e/0xd90 tcp_sendmsg_fastopen+0x3ce/0x710 mptcp_sendmsg+0xff1/0x1a20 inet_sendmsg+0x11d/0x140 __sys_sendto+0x405/0x490 __x64_sys_sendto+0xdc/0x1b0 do_syscall_64+0x3b/0x90 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x72/0xdc We need to properly clean-up all the paired MPTCP-level resources and be sure to release the msk last, even when the unaccepted subflow is destroyed by the TCP internals via inet_child_forget(). We can re-use the existing MPTCP_WORK_CLOSE_SUBFLOW infra, explicitly checking that for the critical scenario: the closed subflow is the MPC one, the msk is not accepted and eventually going through full cleanup. With such change, __mptcp_destroy_sock() is always called on msk sockets, even on accepted ones. We don't need anymore to transiently drop one sk reference at msk clone time. Please note this commit depends on the parent one: mptcp: refactor passive socket initialization

Published: 2025-05-02 Last update: 2026-06-17 Assigner: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2023-53072 is rated Low Risk (33.3/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.16%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2023-53072

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.03% 0.16% +0.13%
2 2026-06-10 0.05% 0.03% -0.02%
3 2026-02-26 0.05%

Full EPSS history (4 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-53072

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.8 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
1.8 5.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-53072

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-53072

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2023-53072 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (linux), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 4, open 1. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2023-53072
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-53072
suse medium CVE-2023-53072 severity moderate: SUSE including 75 source package names (bpftool-4.18.0-553.el8_10, bpftool-7.2.0-362.8.1.el9_3, …), 266 product×package rows across 43 product lines (SLES-LTSS-TERADATA 15 SP2, SUSE Liberty Linux 8, … (43 product lines)): Known Not Affected 217, Fixed 49. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-53072/
ubuntu medium CVE-2023-53072 medium priority: Ubuntu including 158 source packages (linux, linux-allwinner-5.19, …), 1551 status rows across 10 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 1145, ignored 146, not-affected 135, released 92, needed 33. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-53072

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-53072

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
linux linux_kernel >= 5.7, < 6.1.22 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 6.2, < 6.2.8 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.3 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.3:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel 6.3 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.3:rc2:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-53072

cvelogic Threat Intelligence