What is CVE-2023-53242?

CVE-2023-53242 is a Medium severity Linux kernel vulnerability with a CVSS score of 5.5 out of 10, affecting Linux kernel versions from 4.20 onward and patched in 5.4.235, 5.10.173, 5.15.99 and others. CVE-2023-53242 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2023-53242?

CVE-2023-53242 has a CVSS score of 5.5 out of 10, rated Medium severity. The vector string is CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

Is there a patch available for CVE-2023-53242?

Yes, CVE-2023-53242 has been patched. Fixed versions include 5.4.235, 5.10.173, 5.15.99 and others. If you are running Linux kernel 4.20 or later up to the fix versions, apply the relevant patch for your kernel branch.

Is CVE-2023-53242 actively exploited?

CVE-2023-53242 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

CVE-2023-53242

Medium

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: thermal/drivers/hisi: Drop second sensor hi3660 The commit 74c8e6bffbe1 ("driver core: Add __alloc_size hint to devm allocators") exposes a panic "BRK handler: Fatal exception" on the hi3660_thermal_probe funciton. This is because the function allocates memory for only one sensors array entry, but tries to fill up a second one. Fix this by removing the unneeded second access.

Package Linux Kernel

Published 2025-09-15

Last modified 2026-01-14

CVSS version 3.1

Patch available

Yes

CVSS 3.1 score

5.5

out of 10

Medium

Attack Vector

Local

Attack Complexity

Low

Privileges Required

Low

User Interaction

None

Scope

Unchanged

Confidentiality

Low

Integrity

None

Availability

High

Vector string

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected versions

Linux kernel versions 4.20 and later are affected. Fixed in 5.4.235, 5.10.173, 5.15.99, 6.1.16, 6.2.3, 6.3 and their respective stable series.

Affected from

≥ 4.20

Fixed in

✓ 5.4.235 5.4.x ✓ 5.10.173 5.10.x ✓ 5.15.99 5.15.x ✓ 6.1.16 6.1.x ✓ 6.2.3 6.2.x ✓ 6.3

References

The following references provide additional information about CVE-2023-53242 including vendor advisories, patch commits, exploit details, and third-party analysis. Links are sourced from the NIST NVD database.

Kernel patch commit
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/15cc25829a97c3957e520e971868aacc84341317
Patch
Kernel patch commit
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3cf2181e438f43ed24e12424fe36d156cca233b9
Patch
Kernel patch commit
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/68e675a9b69cfc34dd915d91a4650e3ee53421f4
Patch

6 patch commits total View all on NVD

Details

CVE ID CVE-2023-53242

Severity Medium

CVSS score 5.5 / 10

CVSS version 3.1

Published 2025-09-15

Modified 2026-01-14

KEV No

Patch

Yes

Package linux

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2023-53242?

CVE-2023-53242 is a Medium severity Linux kernel vulnerability with a CVSS score of 5.5 out of 10 . It affects Linux kernel versions from 4.20 onward and has been patched in 5.4.235, 5.10.173, 5.15.99 and others. CVE-2023-53242 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
What is the CVSS score for CVE-2023-53242?

CVE-2023-53242 has a CVSS score of 5.5 out of 10, rated Medium severity (CVSS 3.1). The vector string is CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.
Is there a patch available for CVE-2023-53242?

Yes — CVE-2023-53242 has been patched. Fixed versions include 5.4.235, 5.10.173, 5.15.99 and others. If you are running Linux kernel 4.20 or later up to the fix versions, apply the relevant patch for your kernel branch.
Is CVE-2023-53242 actively exploited?

No — CVE-2023-53242 has not been confirmed as actively exploited. It is not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.