CVE-2023-54041
Unknown Unknown - Not Provided
Memory Leak in Linux Kernel io_uring Buffer Removal

Publication date: 2025-12-24

Last updated on: 2025-12-24

Assigner: kernel.org

Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: io_uring: fix memory leak when removing provided buffers When removing provided buffers, io_buffer structs are not being disposed of, leading to a memory leak. They can't be freed individually, because they are allocated in page-sized groups. They need to be added to some free list instead, such as io_buffers_cache. All callers already hold the lock protecting it, apart from when destroying buffers, so had to extend the lock there.
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Meta Information
Published
2025-12-24
Last Modified
2025-12-24
Generated
2026-06-16
AI Q&A
2025-12-24
EPSS Evaluated
2026-06-15
NVD
CVE-2023-54041
EUVD
EUVD-2025-205113
Affected Vendors & Products
Showing 2 associated CPEs
Vendor Product Version / Range
linux linux_kernel *
linux kernel *
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Exploitability
CWE
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KEV
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CWE ID Description
CWE-UNKNOWN
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Executive Summary

This vulnerability is a memory leak in the Linux kernel's io_uring subsystem. Specifically, when removing provided buffers, the io_buffer structures are not properly disposed of because they are allocated in page-sized groups and cannot be freed individually. Instead, they should be added to a free list like io_buffers_cache. The issue was that the locking mechanism protecting this free list was not extended to cover buffer destruction, leading to the leak.

Impact Analysis

The memory leak caused by this vulnerability can lead to increased memory usage over time, potentially exhausting system memory resources. This can degrade system performance or cause instability, especially in systems heavily using io_uring for I/O operations.

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