CVE-2023-53728 | posix-timers: Ensure timer ID search-loop limit is valid

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: posix-timers: Ensure timer ID search-loop limit is valid posix_timer_add() tries to allocate a posix timer ID by starting from the cached ID which was stored by the last successful allocation. This is done in a loop searching the ID space for a free slot one by one. The loop has to terminate when the search wrapped around to the starting point. But that's racy vs. establishing the starting point. That is read out lockless, which leads to the following problem: CPU0 CPU1 posix_timer_add() start = sig->posix_timer_id; lock(hash_lock); ... posix_timer_add() if (++sig->posix_timer_id < 0) start = sig->posix_timer_id; sig->posix_timer_id = 0; So CPU1 can observe a negative start value, i.e. -1, and the loop break never happens because the condition can never be true: if (sig->posix_timer_id == start) break; While this is unlikely to ever turn into an endless loop as the ID space is huge (INT_MAX), the racy read of the start value caught the attention of KCSAN and Dmitry unearthed that incorrectness. Rewrite it so that all id operations are under the hash lock.

Published: 2025-10-22 Last update: 2026-04-15 Assigner: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2023-53728 is rated Low Risk (5.3/100): low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.02%). Mandatory action: Low composite risk—no urgent action required; patch on your normal maintenance cycle and revisit priority if CVSS or EPSS increases.

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-2023-53728

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 2025-10-23 0.02%

Full EPSS history (1 record total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-53728

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

No CVSS data in dataset for this CVE.

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-53728

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-53728

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2023-53728 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-2023-53728
redhat low https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-53728
suse medium CVE-2023-53728 severity moderate: SUSE including 393 source package names (2.1.3-6.88:kernel-default-base-6.4.0-36.1.21.13, 2.1.3-7.105:kernel-rt-6.4.0-38.1, …), 692 product×package rows across 150 product lines (Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/base-os-container, Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/kvm-os-container, … (150 product lines)): Fixed 442, Known Affected 231, Will Not Fix 19. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-53728/
ubuntu medium CVE-2023-53728 medium priority: Ubuntu including 157 source packages (linux, linux-allwinner-5.19, …), 1405 status rows across 9 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 1010, ignored 163, released 139, not-affected 72, needed 20, needs-triage 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-53728

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-53728

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
No affected products in dataset.

References for CVE-2023-53728

cvelogic Threat Intelligence