Kernel corruption via premature Bluetooth connection deletion
Published Oct 7, 2025 · Updated Oct 7, 2025
Use-after-free in the Linux kernel Bluetooth HCI event handler allows physically proximate attackers to crash or corrupt the kernel. On a failed HCI_Disconnect, hci_cs_disconnect deletes hci_conn before disconn_cfm lets ISO, L2CAP, and SCO users release their uncounted references. Bluetooth radio proximity, no pairing, and a concurrent peer link teardown are sufficient; later traffic dereferences freed kernel memory, causing an oops or enabling memory read, write, and control-flow influence.
Summary
What happened
Use-after-free in the Linux kernel Bluetooth HCI event handler allows physically proximate attackers to crash or corrupt the kernel. On a failed HCI_Disconnect, hci_cs_disconnect deletes hci_conn before disconn_cfm lets ISO, L2CAP, and SCO users release their uncounted references. Bluetooth radio proximity, no pairing, and a concurrent peer link teardown are sufficient; later traffic dereferences freed kernel memory, causing an oops or enabling memory read, write, and control-flow influence.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2023-53673
- Published
- Oct 7, 2025
- Updated
- Oct 7, 2025
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- CWE-416, T1210
- Attack vector
- adjacent
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Oct 7, 2025CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Oct 7, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=5.7
- Affected versionversion=b8d290525e3972b5e876b2649a42bf4081d753fe <093a07052406b363b1b2ab489e17dbadaf3e509b
- Affected versionversion=b8d290525e3972b5e876b2649a42bf4081d753fe <59bd1e476bbc7bc6dff3c61bba787095a4839796
- Affected versionversion=b8d290525e3972b5e876b2649a42bf4081d753fe <7f7cfcb6f0825652973b780f248603e23f16ee90
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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