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CVE-2023-53421 Moderate

blk-cgroup: Reinit blkg_iostat_set after clearing in blkcg_reset_stats()

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: blk-cgroup: Reinit blkg_iostat_set after clearing in blkcg_reset_stats() When blkg_alloc() is called to allocate a blkcg_gq structure with the associated blkg_iostat_set's, there are 2 fields within blkg_iostat_set that requires proper initialization - blkg & sync. The former field was introduced by commit 3b8cc6298724 ("blk-cgroup: Optimize blkcg_rstat_flush()") while the later one was introduced by commit f73316482977 ("blk-cgroup: reimplement basic IO stats using cgroup rstat"). Unfortunately those fields in the blkg_iostat_set's are not properly re-initialized when they are cleared in v1's blkcg_reset_stats(). This can lead to a kernel panic due to NULL pointer access of the blkg pointer. The missing initialization of sync is less problematic and can be a problem in a debug kernel due to missing lockdep initialization. Fix these problems by re-initializing them after memory clearing.

Exploit probability 0.2%
Published September 18, 2025
Required by Not available
Last source change August 12, 2026

02 / AFFECTED SOFTWARE

Affected packages

Linux Kernel
Unknown Unknown

03 / CONNECTIONS

Connected vulnerabilities

04 / EVIDENCE

Source records

Open Source Vulnerabilities CVE-2023-53421

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: blk-cgroup: Reinit blkg_iostat_set after clearing in blkcg_reset_stats() When blkg_alloc() is called to allocate a blkcg_gq structure with the associated blkg_iostat_set's, there are 2 fields within blkg_iostat_set that requires proper initialization - blkg & sync. The former field was introduced by commit 3b8cc6298724 ("blk-cgroup: Optimize blkcg_rstat_flush()") while the later one was introduced by commit f73316482977 ("blk-cgroup: reimplement basic IO stats using cgroup rstat"). Unfortunately those fields in the blkg_iostat_set's are not properly re-initialized when they are cleared in v1's blkcg_reset_stats(). This can lead to a kernel panic due to NULL pointer access of the blkg pointer. The missing initialization of sync is less problematic and can be a problem in a debug kernel due to missing lockdep initialization. Fix these problems by re-initializing them after memory clearing.

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05 / REFERENCES

Further evidence