CVE-2023-53539 [Medium] | Security Vulnerability in Linux Kernel

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: RDMA/rxe: Fix incomplete state save in rxe_requester If a send packet is dropped by the IP layer in rxe_requester() the call to rxe_xmit_packet() can fail with err == -EAGAIN. To recover, the state of the wqe is restored to the state before the packet was sent so it can be resent. However, the routines that save and restore the state miss a significnt part of the variable state in the wqe, the dma struct which is used to process through the sge table. And, the state is not saved before the packet is built which modifies the dma struct. Under heavy stress testing with many QPs on a fast node sending large messages to a slow node dropped packets are observed and the resent packets are corrupted because the dma struct was not restored. This patch fixes this behavior and allows the test cases to succeed.

#	Date	Old EPSS score	New EPSS score	Delta (New - Old)
1	2025-10-05	—	0.02%	—

Date

Old EPSS score

New EPSS score

Delta (New - Old)

2025-10-05

—

0.02%

—

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]

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]

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-53539

vendor	priority	summary	link
`debian`	not yet assigned	CVE-2023-53539 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-2023-53539
`redhat`	medium	—	https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-53539
`suse`	medium	—	https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-53539/
`ubuntu`	medium	CVE-2023-53539 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 159, released 88, not-affected 80, needed 70.	https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-53539

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-53539

Vendor	Product	Version	Raw CPE
linux	linux_kernel	>= 4.8.1, < 6.1.53	cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel::::::::
linux	linux_kernel	>= 6.2, < 6.4.16	cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel::::::::
linux	linux_kernel	>= 6.5, < 6.5.3	cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel::::::::
linux	linux_kernel	4.8	cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:4.8:-::::::
linux	linux_kernel	4.8	cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:4.8:rc7::::::
linux	linux_kernel	4.8	cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:4.8:rc8::::::

References for CVE-2023-53539

URL	Tags
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/255c0e60e1d16874fc151358d94bc8df661600dd	Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2f2a6422287fe29f9343247d77b645100ece0652	Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5d122db2ff80cd2aed4dcd630befb56b51ddf947	Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/70518f3aaf5a059b691867d7d2d46b999319656a	Patch

URL

CVE-2023-53539 | RDMA/rxe: Fix incomplete state save in rxe_requester

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2023-53539

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-53539

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-53539

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-53539

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-53539

References for CVE-2023-53539