linux-cve-announce - CVE-2023-53281: drivers: staging: rtl8723bs: Fix locking in _rtw_join_timeout

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Message-ID: <2025091624-CVE-2023-53281-7e00@gregkh>
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2025 10:11:31 +0200
From: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
To: linux-cve-announce@...r.kernel.org
Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...nel.org>
Subject: CVE-2023-53281: drivers: staging: rtl8723bs: Fix locking in _rtw_join_timeout_handler()

From: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...nel.org>

Description
===========

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

drivers: staging: rtl8723bs: Fix locking in _rtw_join_timeout_handler()

Commit 041879b12ddb ("drivers: staging: rtl8192bs: Fix deadlock in
rtw_joinbss_event_prehandle()") besides fixing the deadlock also
modified _rtw_join_timeout_handler() to use spin_[un]lock_irq()
instead of spin_[un]lock_bh().

_rtw_join_timeout_handler() calls rtw_do_join() which takes
pmlmepriv->scanned_queue.lock using spin_[un]lock_bh(). This
spin_unlock_bh() call re-enables softirqs which triggers an oops in
kernel/softirq.c: __local_bh_enable_ip() when it calls
lockdep_assert_irqs_enabled():

[  244.506087] WARNING: CPU: 2 PID: 0 at kernel/softirq.c:376 __local_bh_enable_ip+0xa6/0x100
...
[  244.509022] Call Trace:
[  244.509048]  <IRQ>
[  244.509100]  _rtw_join_timeout_handler+0x134/0x170 [r8723bs]
[  244.509468]  ? __pfx__rtw_join_timeout_handler+0x10/0x10 [r8723bs]
[  244.509772]  ? __pfx__rtw_join_timeout_handler+0x10/0x10 [r8723bs]
[  244.510076]  call_timer_fn+0x95/0x2a0
[  244.510200]  __run_timers.part.0+0x1da/0x2d0

This oops is causd by the switch to spin_[un]lock_irq() which disables
the IRQs for the entire duration of _rtw_join_timeout_handler().

Disabling the IRQs is not necessary since all code taking this lock
runs from either user contexts or from softirqs, switch back to
spin_[un]lock_bh() to fix this.

The Linux kernel CVE team has assigned CVE-2023-53281 to this issue.


Affected and fixed versions
===========================

	Issue introduced in 5.15.47 with commit ae60744d5fad840b9d056d35b4b652d95e755846 and fixed in 5.15.111 with commit 209850f17717a3b5cc558578bef5631ac7045539
	Issue introduced in 5.19 with commit 041879b12ddb0c6c83ed9c0bdd10dc82a056f2fc and fixed in 6.1.28 with commit 2a50e44a66d268ee5db3d177f1fdc1503dbce6e7
	Issue introduced in 5.19 with commit 041879b12ddb0c6c83ed9c0bdd10dc82a056f2fc and fixed in 6.2.15 with commit dc327e87c6d9bfd9ee08e76396b3c0ba848ec554
	Issue introduced in 5.19 with commit 041879b12ddb0c6c83ed9c0bdd10dc82a056f2fc and fixed in 6.3.2 with commit 4ab1bace1dd3875371b481ef4301c4671bddea22
	Issue introduced in 5.19 with commit 041879b12ddb0c6c83ed9c0bdd10dc82a056f2fc and fixed in 6.4 with commit 215792eda008f6a1e7ed9d77fa20d582d22bb114
	Issue introduced in 5.17.15 with commit 1f6c99b94ca3caad346876b3e22e3ca3d25bc8ee
	Issue introduced in 5.18.4 with commit eca9748d9267a38d532464e3305a38629e9c35a9

Please see https://www.kernel.org for a full list of currently supported
kernel versions by the kernel community.

Unaffected versions might change over time as fixes are backported to
older supported kernel versions.  The official CVE entry at
	https://cve.org/CVERecord/?id=CVE-2023-53281
will be updated if fixes are backported, please check that for the most
up to date information about this issue.


Affected files
==============

The file(s) affected by this issue are:
	drivers/staging/rtl8723bs/core/rtw_mlme.c


Mitigation
==========

The Linux kernel CVE team recommends that you update to the latest
stable kernel version for this, and many other bugfixes.  Individual
changes are never tested alone, but rather are part of a larger kernel
release.  Cherry-picking individual commits is not recommended or
supported by the Linux kernel community at all.  If however, updating to
the latest release is impossible, the individual changes to resolve this
issue can be found at these commits:
	https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/209850f17717a3b5cc558578bef5631ac7045539
	https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2a50e44a66d268ee5db3d177f1fdc1503dbce6e7
	https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/dc327e87c6d9bfd9ee08e76396b3c0ba848ec554
	https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/4ab1bace1dd3875371b481ef4301c4671bddea22
	https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/215792eda008f6a1e7ed9d77fa20d582d22bb114