CVE-2023-53667
Medium · 5.5CVSS
5.5
EPSS
0.1%
Published
Oct 7, 2025
CISA due date
—
Cloudanix analysis
A flaw in how the Linux kernel handles certain USB network devices can let a local user or plugged-in device crash the entire computer.
- Exploitation
- Local Privilege
- Attacker needs
- Low Privilege
- Complexity
- Low
- Impact
- Denial Of Service
- Component
- OS kernel
- Class
- Memory Corruption
- Remediation
- Upgrade
- Effort
- Medium
- Patch risk
- Low
What it actually does
Improper clamping of dwNtbOutMaxSize below USB_CDC_NCM_NTB_MIN_OUT_SIZE in cdc_ncm_check_tx_max allows alloc_skb to create an undersized buffer; subsequent skb_put in cdc_ncm_fill_tx_frame / cdc_ncm_ndp16 then exceeds the tail pointer and triggers skb_over_panic.
Why it matters to the business
A local user or attached USB device can crash the kernel, causing immediate system reboot or hang and loss of all network sessions on that host; widespread Linux distributions are affected until patched.
How an attack unfolds
An attacker supplies a USB CDC-NCM device or emulated gadget that advertises an excessively small dwNtbOutMaxSize; when the kernel driver processes outgoing frames, the undersized SKB allocation is used, and the subsequent NDP header write triggers the kernel panic.
How to fix it
Update the Linux kernel to commit 2334ff0b343ba6ba7a6c0586fcc83992bbbc1776 or later; ensure the running kernel contains the clamp of dwNtbOutMaxSize to [USB_CDC_NCM_NTB_MIN_OUT_SIZE, CDC_NCM_NTB_MAX_SIZE_TX].
How to confirm the fix worked
Confirm the patch is present by checking that cdc_ncm_check_tx_max clamps the value; attempt to load a CDC-NCM device with a low dwNtbOutMaxSize in a test environment and verify no panic occurs.
Typical attack path
- Connect or emulate a USB CDC-NCM device reporting dwNtbOutMaxSize between 1 and USB_CDC_NCM_NTB_MIN_OUT_SIZE-1
- Trigger network transmit path that invokes cdc_ncm_tx_fixup
- cdc_ncm_fill_tx_frame performs skb_put that writes past the allocated buffer
- Kernel hits skb_over_panic and panics
How to detect it
Search kernel logs for "skb_over_panic" together with "cdc_ncm_fill_tx_frame" or "cdc_ncm_ndp16"; inspect USB device descriptors for dwNtbOutMaxSize values below 172 bytes on systems that later panicked.
What your security team should do
- Prioritize kernel upgrades on all systems exposing USB or using CDC-NCM networking within the next 30 days
- Restrict untrusted USB device attachment via USBGuard or physical controls until patches are deployed
- Monitor for kernel oops/panic logs containing skb_over_panic and cdc_ncm_fill_tx_frame
The record
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: cdc_ncm: Deal with too low values of dwNtbOutMaxSize Currently in cdc_ncm_check_tx_max(), if dwNtbOutMaxSize is lower than the calculated "min" value, but greater than zero, the logic sets tx_max to dwNtbOutMaxSize. This is then used to allocate a new SKB in cdc_ncm_fill_tx_frame() where all the data is handled. For small values of dwNtbOutMaxSize the memory allocated during alloc_skb(dwNtbOutMaxSize, GFP_ATOMIC) will have the same size, due to how size is aligned at alloc time: size = SKB_DATA_ALIGN(size); size += SKB_DATA_ALIGN(sizeof(struct skb_shared_info)); Thus we hit the same bug that we tried to squash with commit 2be6d4d16a084 ("net: cdc_ncm: Allow for dwNtbOutMaxSize to be unset or zero") Low values of dwNtbOutMaxSize do not cause an issue presently because at alloc_skb() time more memory (512b) is allocated than required for the SKB headers alone (320b), leaving some space (512b - 320b = 192b) for CDC data (172b). However, if more elements (for example 3 x u64 = [24b]) were added to one of the SKB header structs, say 'struct skb_shared_info', increasing its original size (320b [320b aligned]) to something larger (344b [384b aligned]), then suddenly the CDC data (172b) no longer fits in the spare SKB data area (512b - 384b = 128b). Consequently the SKB bounds checking semantics fails and panics: skbuff: skb_over_panic: text:ffffffff831f755b len:184 put:172 head:ffff88811f1c6c00 data:ffff88811f1c6c00 tail:0xb8 end:0x80 dev:<NULL> ------------[ cut here ]------------ kernel BUG at net/core/skbuff.c:113! invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN CPU: 0 PID: 57 Comm: kworker/0:2 Not tainted 5.15.106-syzkaller-00249-g19c0ed55a470 #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 04/14/2023 Workqueue: mld mld_ifc_work RIP: 0010:skb_panic net/core/skbuff.c:113 [inline] RIP: 0010:skb_over_panic+0x14c/0x150 net/core/skbuff.c:118 [snip] Call Trace: <TASK> skb_put+0x151/0x210 net/core/skbuff.c:2047 skb_put_zero include/linux/skbuff.h:2422 [inline] cdc_ncm_ndp16 drivers/net/usb/cdc_ncm.c:1131 [inline] cdc_ncm_fill_tx_frame+0x11ab/0x3da0 drivers/net/usb/cdc_ncm.c:1308 cdc_ncm_tx_fixup+0xa3/0x100 Deal with too low values of dwNtbOutMaxSize, clamp it in the range [USB_CDC_NCM_NTB_MIN_OUT_SIZE, CDC_NCM_NTB_MAX_SIZE_TX]. We ensure enough data space is allocated to handle CDC data by making sure dwNtbOutMaxSize is not smaller than USB_CDC_NCM_NTB_MIN_OUT_SIZE.
Affected packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Introduced | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Linux | Kernel | 3.16.0 | 4.14.317 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS | kernel-64kb | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS | kernel-default | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS | kernel-default-base | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1.150500.6.61.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS | kernel-docs | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS | kernel-source | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS | kernel-syms | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS | kernel-64kb | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS | kernel-default | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS | kernel-default-base | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1.150500.6.61.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS | kernel-docs | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS | kernel-source | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS | kernel-syms | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP5 | kernel-default | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Live Patching 15 SP5 | kernel-livepatch-SLE15-SP5_Update_32 | 0 | 1-150500.11.3.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Micro 5.5 | kernel-default | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Micro 5.5 | kernel-default-base | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1.150500.6.61.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Micro 5.5 | kernel-source | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS | kernel-64kb | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS | kernel-default | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS | kernel-default-base | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1.150500.6.61.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS | kernel-docs | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS | kernel-source | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS | kernel-syms | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS | kernel-zfcpdump | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP5 | kernel-default | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP5 | kernel-default-base | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1.150500.6.61.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP5 | kernel-docs | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP5 | kernel-obs-build | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP5 | kernel-source | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
| SUSE:Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP5 | kernel-syms | 0 | 5.14.21-150500.55.127.1 |
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