CVE-2023-54171 | tracing: Fix memory leak of iter->temp when reading trace_pipe

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: tracing: Fix memory leak of iter->temp when reading trace_pipe kmemleak reports: unreferenced object 0xffff88814d14e200 (size 256): comm "cat", pid 336, jiffies 4294871818 (age 779.490s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 04 00 01 03 00 00 00 00 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 0c d8 c8 9b ff ff ff ff 04 5a ca 9b ff ff ff ff .........Z...... backtrace: [<ffffffff9bdff18f>] __kmalloc+0x4f/0x140 [<ffffffff9bc9238b>] trace_find_next_entry+0xbb/0x1d0 [<ffffffff9bc9caef>] trace_print_lat_context+0xaf/0x4e0 [<ffffffff9bc94490>] print_trace_line+0x3e0/0x950 [<ffffffff9bc95499>] tracing_read_pipe+0x2d9/0x5a0 [<ffffffff9bf03a43>] vfs_read+0x143/0x520 [<ffffffff9bf04c2d>] ksys_read+0xbd/0x160 [<ffffffff9d0f0edf>] do_syscall_64+0x3f/0x90 [<ffffffff9d2000aa>] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x6e/0xd8 when reading file 'trace_pipe', 'iter->temp' is allocated or relocated in trace_find_next_entry() but not freed before 'trace_pipe' is closed. To fix it, free 'iter->temp' in tracing_release_pipe().

Published: 2025-12-30 Last update: 2026-06-17 Assigner: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2023-54171 is rated Low Risk (6.5/100): low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.17%). 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-2023-54171

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% 0.17% +0.15%
2 2025-12-31 0.02%

Full EPSS history (2 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-54171

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

No CVSS data in dataset for this CVE.

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-54171

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-54171

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2023-54171 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-2023-54171
redhat low https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-54171
suse medium https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-54171/
ubuntu medium CVE-2023-54171 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 173, released 111, not-affected 110, needs-triage 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-54171

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-54171

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
linux linux_kernel >= 5.7, < 5.10.188 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.7, < 5.15.121 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.7, < 6.1.40 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.7, < 6.4.5 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.7, < 6.5 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-54171

cvelogic Threat Intelligence