CVE-2023-53281 Affecting kernel-obs-build package, versions <5.14.21-150500.55.124.1


Severity

Recommended
0.0
medium
0
10

Based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server security rating.

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.02% (6th percentile)

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-SLES155-KERNELOBSBUILD-13611574
  • published17 Oct 2025
  • disclosed16 Oct 2025

Introduced: 16 Oct 2025

NewCVE-2023-53281  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade SLES:15.5 kernel-obs-build to version 5.14.21-150500.55.124.1 or higher.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream kernel-obs-build package and not the kernel-obs-build package as distributed by SLES. See How to fix? for SLES:15.5 relevant fixed versions and status.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

drivers: staging: rtl8723bs: Fix locking in _rtw_join_timeout_handler()

Commit 041879b12ddb ("drivers: staging: rtl8192bs: Fix deadlock in rtw_joinbss_event_prehandle()") besides fixing the deadlock also modified rtw_join_timeout_handler() to use spin[un]lock_irq() instead of spin_[un]lock_bh().

rtw_join_timeout_handler() calls rtw_do_join() which takes pmlmepriv->scanned_queue.lock using spin[un]lock_bh(). This spin_unlock_bh() call re-enables softirqs which triggers an oops in kernel/softirq.c: __local_bh_enable_ip() when it calls lockdep_assert_irqs_enabled():

[ 244.506087] WARNING: CPU: 2 PID: 0 at kernel/softirq.c:376 __local_bh_enable_ip+0xa6/0x100 ... [ 244.509022] Call Trace: [ 244.509048] <IRQ> [ 244.509100] _rtw_join_timeout_handler+0x134/0x170 [r8723bs] [ 244.509468] ? __pfx__rtw_join_timeout_handler+0x10/0x10 [r8723bs] [ 244.509772] ? __pfx__rtw_join_timeout_handler+0x10/0x10 [r8723bs] [ 244.510076] call_timer_fn+0x95/0x2a0 [ 244.510200] __run_timers.part.0+0x1da/0x2d0

This oops is causd by the switch to spin_[un]lock_irq() which disables the IRQs for the entire duration of _rtw_join_timeout_handler().

Disabling the IRQs is not necessary since all code taking this lock runs from either user contexts or from softirqs, switch back to spin_[un]lock_bh() to fix this.

CVSS Base Scores

version 3.1