BPF map exhaustion via leaked update elements
Published Dec 24, 2025 · Updated Dec 24, 2025
Memory leakage in the Linux kernel allows local users to exhaust LRU BPF map elements through repeated updates that encounter bucket-lock contention. The update path in kernel/bpf/hashtab.c allocates an element before locking the target bucket, then returns EBUSY without re-queuing the allocation when locking fails. Reachability requires access to create and update LRU or LRU_PERCPU BPF maps; affected map updates eventually fail permanently with ENOMEM.
Summary
What happened
Memory leakage in the Linux kernel allows local users to exhaust LRU BPF map elements through repeated updates that encounter bucket-lock contention. The update path in kernel/bpf/hashtab.c allocates an element before locking the target bucket, then returns EBUSY without re-queuing the allocation when locking fails. Reachability requires access to create and update LRU or LRU_PERCPU BPF maps; affected map updates eventually fail permanently with ENOMEM.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2023-54033
- Published
- Dec 24, 2025
- Updated
- Dec 24, 2025
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- Unavailable
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- Unavailable
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Dec 24, 2025CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Dec 24, 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?
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- Affected versionversion=20b6cc34ea74b6a84599c1f8a70f3315b56a1883 <1a9e80f757bbb1562d82e350afce2bb2f712cc3d
- Affected versionversion=20b6cc34ea74b6a84599c1f8a70f3315b56a1883 <79ea1a12fb9a8275b6e19d4ca625dd872dedcbb9
- Affected versionversion=20b6cc34ea74b6a84599c1f8a70f3315b56a1883 <965e9cccbe6b9c7b379908cebcb5e3a47f20dd5e
- Affected versionversion=20b6cc34ea74b6a84599c1f8a70f3315b56a1883 <b34ffb0c6d23583830f9327864b9c1f486003305
- Affected versionversion=5.11
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
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Attacks
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Weakness, pattern, technique
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Public exploit references
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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