CVE-2023-53843

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: openvswitch: reject negative ifindex Recent changes in net-next (commit 759ab1edb56c ("net: store netdevs in an xarray")) refactored the handling of pre-assigned ifindexes and let syzbot surface a latent problem in ovs. ovs does not validate ifindex, making it possible to create netdev ports with negative ifindex values. It's easy to repro with YNL: $ ./cli.py --spec netlink/specs/ovs_datapath.yaml \ --do new \ --json '{"upcall-pid": 1, "name":"my-dp"}' $ ./cli.py --spec netlink/specs/ovs_vport.yaml \ --do new \ --json '{"upcall-pid": "00000001", "name": "some-port0", "dp-ifindex":3,"ifindex":4294901760,"type":2}' $ ip link show -65536: some-port0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000 link/ether 7a:48:21:ad:0b:fb brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff ... Validate the inputs. Now the second command correctly returns: $ ./cli.py --spec netlink/specs/ovs_vport.yaml \ --do new \ --json '{"upcall-pid": "00000001", "name": "some-port0", "dp-ifindex":3,"ifindex":4294901760,"type":2}' lib.ynl.NlError: Netlink error: Numerical result out of range nl_len = 108 (92) nl_flags = 0x300 nl_type = 2 error: -34 extack: {'msg': 'integer out of range', 'unknown': [[type:4 len:36] b'\x0c\x00\x02\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x0c\x00\x03\x00\xff\xff\xff\x7f\x00\x00\x00\x00\x08\x00\x01\x00\x08\x00\x00\x00'], 'bad-attr': '.ifindex'} Accept 0 since it used to be silently ignored.

Package Linux Kernel
Published 2025-12-09
Last modified 2026-04-15
Patch available
Yes

Affected versions

Linux kernel versions 6.1 and later are affected. Fixed in 6.1.47, 6.4.12, 6.5 and their respective stable series.

Affected from
≥ 6.1
Fixed in
✓ 6.1.47 6.1.x ✓ 6.4.12 6.4.x ✓ 6.5

References

The following references provide additional information about CVE-2023-53843 including vendor advisories, patch commits, exploit details, and third-party analysis. Links are sourced from the NIST NVD database.

Frequently asked questions

  • What is CVE-2023-53843?

    CVE-2023-53843 is a unscored severity Linux kernel vulnerability . It affects Linux kernel versions from 6.1 onward and has been patched in 6.1.47, 6.4.12 and 6.5. CVE-2023-53843 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

  • Is there a patch available for CVE-2023-53843?

    Yes — CVE-2023-53843 has been patched. Fixed versions include 6.1.47, 6.4.12 and 6.5. If you are running Linux kernel 6.1 or later up to the fix versions, apply the relevant patch for your kernel branch.

  • Is CVE-2023-53843 actively exploited?

    No — CVE-2023-53843 has not been confirmed as actively exploited. It is not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.