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Unrated severityNVD Advisory· Published Dec 24, 2025· Updated Apr 15, 2026

CVE-2023-54131

CVE-2023-54131

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

wifi: rt2x00: Fix memory leak when handling surveys

When removing a rt2x00 device, its associated channel surveys are not freed, causing a memory leak observable with kmemleak:

unreferenced object 0xffff9620f0881a00 (size 512): comm "systemd-udevd", pid 2290, jiffies 4294906974 (age 33.768s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 70 44 12 00 00 00 00 00 92 8a 00 00 00 00 00 00 pD.............. 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ab 87 01 00 00 00 00 00 ................ backtrace: [] __kmalloc+0x4b/0x130 [] rt2800_probe_hw+0xc2b/0x1380 [rt2800lib] [] rt2800usb_probe_hw+0xe/0x60 [rt2800usb] [] rt2x00lib_probe_dev+0x21a/0x7d0 [rt2x00lib] [] rt2x00usb_probe+0x1be/0x980 [rt2x00usb] [] usb_probe_interface+0xe2/0x310 [usbcore] [] really_probe+0x1a5/0x410 [] __driver_probe_device+0x78/0x180 [] driver_probe_device+0x1e/0x90 [] __driver_attach+0xd2/0x1c0 [] bus_for_each_dev+0x77/0xd0 [] bus_add_driver+0x112/0x210 [] driver_register+0x5c/0x120 [] usb_register_driver+0x88/0x150 [usbcore] [] do_one_initcall+0x44/0x220 [] do_init_module+0x4c/0x220

Fix this by freeing the channel surveys on device removal.

Tested with a RT3070 based USB wireless adapter.

AI Insight

LLM-synthesized narrative grounded in this CVE's description and references.

A memory leak in the Linux kernel's rt2x00 WiFi driver occurs when removing a device, as channel surveys are not freed.

Vulnerability

In the Linux kernel's rt2x00 WiFi driver, a memory leak exists in the handling of channel surveys. When a rt2x00 device is removed, the associated channel survey structures are not freed, leading to a memory leak. This was observed via kmemleak, showing unreferenced objects allocated during device probing [1].

Exploitation

The vulnerability is triggered by removing a rt2x00 device, such as a USB wireless adapter. No special privileges are needed beyond the ability to physically disconnect or unbind the device. The attack surface is local, requiring the attacker to have access to the system and the ability to cause device removal [2].

Impact

An attacker could repeatedly trigger device removal to exhaust kernel memory, potentially leading to a denial of service (DoS). The leak is per device removal, and with repeated actions, system memory could be depleted.

Mitigation

The fix involves freeing the channel surveys when the device is removed. Patches have been committed to the Linux kernel stable branches [1][2]. Users should update to a kernel version containing the fix (e.g., versions after the commit dates). No workarounds are mentioned.

References
  1. Making sure you're not a bot!
  2. Making sure you're not a bot!

AI Insight generated on May 19, 2026. Synthesized from this CVE's description and the cited reference URLs; citations are validated against the source bundle.

Affected products

1

Patches

5
eb77c0c0a17c
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.gitvia osv
commit
bea3f8aa9993
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.gitvia osv
commit
494064ffd60d
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.gitvia osv
commit
0354bce76ed1
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.gitvia osv
commit
cbef9a83c51d
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.gitvia osv
commit

Vulnerability mechanics

Generated on May 9, 2026. Inputs: CWE entries + fix-commit diffs from this CVE's patches. Citations validated against bundle.

References

5

News mentions

0

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