Local crash via tracing ring-buffer flag race
Published Oct 22, 2025 · Updated Oct 22, 2025
A race condition in the Linux kernel tracing ring buffer allows local users to trigger a kernel warning and system crash through concurrent trace reads. rb_check_pages clears and restores the head-page RB_FLAG while rb_handle_head_page can concurrently normalize it, leaving rb_move_tail to encounter an inconsistent state. Reproduction requires function tracing, concurrent reads of tracefs, and privileged activation of panic_on_warn; the demonstrated consequence is a host crash.
Summary
What happened
A race condition in the Linux kernel tracing ring buffer allows local users to trigger a kernel warning and system crash through concurrent trace reads. rb_check_pages clears and restores the head-page RB_FLAG while rb_handle_head_page can concurrently normalize it, leaving rb_move_tail to encounter an inconsistent state. Reproduction requires function tracing, concurrent reads of tracefs, and privileged activation of panic_on_warn; the demonstrated consequence is a host crash.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2023-53709
- Published
- Oct 22, 2025
- Updated
- Oct 22, 2025
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- T1499
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- admin
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Oct 22, 2025CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Oct 22, 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=1039221cc2787dee51a7ffbf9b0e79d192dadf76 <09b1bf25f7f7a8f2bf8cd4278bba9c3172db8013
- Affected versionversion=1039221cc2787dee51a7ffbf9b0e79d192dadf76 <6e02a43acd0691791df79ce538f2dd497a6c9b76
- Affected versionversion=1039221cc2787dee51a7ffbf9b0e79d192dadf76 <8843e06f67b14f71c044bf6267b2387784c7e198
- Affected versionversion=1039221cc2787dee51a7ffbf9b0e79d192dadf76 <9674390ac540ed06768e3fbc2dba553929fbd736
- Affected versionversion=1039221cc2787dee51a7ffbf9b0e79d192dadf76 <d41db100bc386b9433a3fc87026f5e8b453653e3
- Affected versionversion=5.7
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
No CVSS assessment is available in this record.
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.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
- Upstream tracefs crash reproducerproof of concept · demonstrated
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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