CVE-2023-53529: 
Linux Kernel vulnerability analysis and mitigation

A memory leak vulnerability has been identified in the Linux kernel's rtw88usb WiFi driver component (CVE-2023-53529). The issue was discovered when Kmemleak detected an unreferenced object of size 512 bytes in the USB probe routine. The leak occurs in the rtwusb_probe function and was verified to be genuine by unloading the driver, which resulted in a dangling pointer to the allocated memory (NVD).

The vulnerability manifests as a memory leak in the rtw88usb driver's probe routine. When the driver is loaded, it allocates memory but fails to properly free it, leading to a memory leak of 512 bytes. The leaked memory is eventually freed in rtwusbintfdeinit(), but the issue creates a dangling pointer when the driver is unloaded. The problem was confirmed through Kmemleak analysis, which showed the leak arising from the kmalloctrace routine called within rtwusb_probe (NVD).

The vulnerability results in memory leaks in the Linux kernel's WiFi driver component, which could potentially lead to system resource exhaustion over time. While the immediate impact of each leak is relatively small (512 bytes), repeated occurrences could accumulate and affect system performance (NVD).

The vulnerability has been resolved in the Linux kernel through a fix in the rtw88usb driver. The allocated memory is now properly freed in rtwusbintfdeinit(). Users should update to the patched version of the kernel to mitigate this issue (NVD).