CVE-2023-53815 | posix-timers: Prevent RT livelock in itimer_delete()

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: posix-timers: Prevent RT livelock in itimer_delete() itimer_delete() has a retry loop when the timer is concurrently expired. On non-RT kernels this just spin-waits until the timer callback has completed, except for posix CPU timers which have HAVE_POSIX_CPU_TIMERS_TASK_WORK enabled. In that case and on RT kernels the existing task could live lock when preempting the task which does the timer delivery. Replace spin_unlock() with an invocation of timer_wait_running() to handle it the same way as the other retry loops in the posix timer code.

Published: 2025-12-09 Last update: 2026-04-15 Assigner: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2023-53815 is rated Low Risk (5.8/100): 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-2023-53815

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 2025-12-09 0.02%

Full EPSS history (1 record total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-53815

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

No CVSS data in dataset for this CVE.

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-53815

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-53815

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2023-53815 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-2023-53815
redhat medium https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-53815
suse medium CVE-2023-53815 severity moderate: SUSE including 369 source package names (2.1.3-6.115:kernel-default-base-6.4.0-39.1.21.16, 2.1.3-7.146:kernel-rt-6.4.0-40.1, …), 732 product×package rows across 145 product lines (Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/base-os-container, Container suse/sl-micro/6.0/kvm-os-container, … (145 product lines)): Fixed 385, Known Affected 231, Known Not Affected 116. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-53815/
ubuntu medium CVE-2023-53815 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 172, released 112, not-affected 88, needed 22, needs-triage 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-53815

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-53815

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
No affected products in dataset.

References for CVE-2023-53815

cvelogic Threat Intelligence