CVE-2023-53461 | io_uring: wait interruptibly for request completions on exit

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: io_uring: wait interruptibly for request completions on exit WHen the ring exits, cleanup is done and the final cancelation and waiting on completions is done by io_ring_exit_work. That function is invoked by kworker, which doesn't take any signals. Because of that, it doesn't really matter if we wait for completions in TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE or TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE state. However, it does matter to the hung task detection checker! Normally we expect cancelations and completions to happen rather quickly. Some test cases, however, will exit the ring and park the owning task stopped (eg via SIGSTOP). If the owning task needs to run task_work to complete requests, then io_ring_exit_work won't make any progress until the task is runnable again. Hence io_ring_exit_work can trigger the hung task detection, which is particularly problematic if panic-on-hung-task is enabled. As the ring exit doesn't take signals to begin with, have it wait interruptibly rather than uninterruptibly. io_uring has a separate stuck-exit warning that triggers independently anyway, so we're not really missing anything by making this switch.

Published: 2025-10-01 Last update: 2026-06-17 Assigner: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2023-53461 is rated Low Risk (23.4/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.14%). 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-2023-53461

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 0.02% 0.14% +0.12%
2 2025-10-01 0.02%

Full EPSS history (2 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-53461

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/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:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
1.8 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-53461

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-53461

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2023-53461 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (linux), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2023-53461
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-53461
suse medium CVE-2023-53461 severity moderate: SUSE including 397 source package names (2.1.3-6.80:kernel-default-base-6.4.0-35.1.21.12, 2.1.3-7.57:kernel-default-6.4.0-35.1, …), 736 product×package rows across 158 product lines (Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/base-os-container, Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/kvm-os-container, … (158 product lines)): Fixed 442, Known Affected 231, Known Not Affected 63. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-53461/
ubuntu medium CVE-2023-53461 medium priority: Ubuntu including 158 source packages (linux, linux-allwinner-5.19, …), 1414 status rows across 9 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 1017, ignored 162, released 116, not-affected 76, needed 42, needs-triage 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-53461

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-53461

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
linux linux_kernel >= 5.1, < 5.10.188 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.11, < 5.15.121 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.16, < 6.1.39 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 6.2, < 6.4.4 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-53461

cvelogic Threat Intelligence