CVE-2023-54228: 
Linux Debian vulnerability analysis and mitigation

CVE-2023-54228 is a resource leak vulnerability in the Linux kernel's regulator: raa215300 driver. The flaw occurs in the error path of the driver's probe function, where memory allocated by clk_register_clkdev() and clk_register_fixed_rate() is not properly freed on failure. It affects Linux kernel versions starting from the introduction of the raa215300 driver (around kernel 6.5) up to the patched commits. The vulnerability was published on December 30, 2025, and carries an estimated CVSS severity of Medium with an EPSS score of approximately 0.024% (Feedly, ENISA EUVD).

The root cause is a resource management error (CWE-401: Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime) in the raa215300 regulator driver within the Linux kernel. When clk_register_fixed_rate() or clk_register_clkdev() are called during device probe and a subsequent step fails, the allocated memory and clock resources are not released in the error-handling path. The fix replaces these functions with their device-managed counterparts — devm_clk_hw_register_fixed_rate() and devm_clk_hw_register_clkdev() — which automatically release resources when the device is unbound or an error occurs. Additionally, the static clk variable is replaced with a local hw variable in probe(), and the redundant clk_unregister_fixed_rate() call is removed from raa215300_rtc_unregister_device() (Feedly, ENISA EUVD).

The vulnerability results in a kernel memory leak when the raa215300 regulator driver encounters an error during device probe. This can lead to gradual memory exhaustion on affected systems over time, particularly in scenarios involving repeated device bind/unbind cycles, potentially degrading system availability. The impact is limited to systems using hardware with the Renesas RAA215300 PMIC, and there is no known path to privilege escalation, code execution, or data exposure from this flaw (Feedly).

There is no known public exploit code, active in-the-wild exploitation, or threat actor attribution associated with CVE-2023-54228. The vulnerability is not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. The EPSS score is approximately 0.024%, reflecting a very low probability of exploitation in the near term (Feedly).

The fix is included in Linux kernel stable commits 2bf2d2ac9e67184dc99275875a6452ca6e3027ff (for the 6.5.x stable branch) and e21ac64e669e960688e79bf5babeed63132dac8a (for the 6.6 branch and later). Users should update to Linux kernel 6.5.4 or 6.6 and later, which include the corrected device-managed resource handling. No configuration-based workaround is available; upgrading the kernel is the recommended remediation (ENISA EUVD, Kernel Stable).