CVE-2023-53728
Published: Oct 22, 2025
Modified: May 11, 2026
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: posix-timers: Ensure timer ID search-loop limit is valid posix_timer_add() tries to allocate a posix timer ID by starting from the cached ID which was stored by the last successful allocation. This is done in a loop searching the ID space for a free slot one by one. The loop has to terminate when the search wrapped around to the starting point. But that's racy vs. establishing the starting point. That is read out lockless, which leads to the following problem: CPU0 CPU1 posix_timer_add() start = sig->posix_timer_id; lock(hash_lock); ... posix_timer_add() if (++sig->posix_timer_id < 0) start = sig->posix_timer_id; sig->posix_timer_id = 0; So CPU1 can observe a negative start value, i.e. -1, and the loop break never happens because the condition can never be true: if (sig->posix_timer_id == start) break; While this is unlikely to ever turn into an endless loop as the ID space is huge (INT_MAX), the racy read of the start value caught the attention of KCSAN and Dmitry unearthed that incorrectness. Rewrite it so that all id operations are under the hash lock.
| Vendor | Product | Versions |
|---|---|---|
Linux | Linux | affected 5ed67f05f66c41e39880a6d61358438a25f9fee5 - < 8dc52c200b889bc1cb34288fbf623d4ff381d2aeaffected 5ed67f05f66c41e39880a6d61358438a25f9fee5 - < 9ea26a8494a0a9337e7415eafd6f3ed940327dc5affected 5ed67f05f66c41e39880a6d61358438a25f9fee5 - < 8ad6679a5bb97cdb3e14942729292b4bfcc0e223affected 5ed67f05f66c41e39880a6d61358438a25f9fee5 - < 322377cc909defcca9451487484845e7e1d20d1baffected 5ed67f05f66c41e39880a6d61358438a25f9fee5 - < ef535e0315afd098c4beb1da364847eca4b56a20+3 more versions |
Linux | Linux | affected 3.10unaffected 0 - < 3.10unaffected 4.14.322 - <= 4.14.*unaffected 4.19.291 - <= 4.19.*unaffected 5.4.251 - <= 5.4.*+5 more versions |
References
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