Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2023-53339

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: fix BUG_ON condition in btrfs_cancel_balance Pausing and canceling balance can race to interrupt balance lead to BUG_ON panic in btrfs_cancel_balance. The BUG_ON condition in btrfs_cancel_balance does not take this race scenario into account. However, the race condition has no other side effects. We can fix that. Reproducing it with panic trace like this: kernel BUG at fs/btrfs/volumes.c:4618! RIP: 0010:btrfs_cancel_balance+0x5cf/0x6a0 Call Trace: <TASK> ? do_nanosleep+0x60/0x120 ? hrtimer_nanosleep+0xb7/0x1a0 ? sched_core_clone_cookie+0x70/0x70 btrfs_ioctl_balance_ctl+0x55/0x70 btrfs_ioctl+0xa46/0xd20 __x64_sys_ioctl+0x7d/0xa0 do_syscall_64+0x38/0x80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x63/0xcd Race scenario as follows: > mutex_unlock(&fs_info->balance_mutex); > -------------------- > .......issue pause and cancel req in another thread > -------------------- > ret = __btrfs_balance(fs_info); > > mutex_lock(&fs_info->balance_mutex); > if (ret == -ECANCELED && atomic_read(&fs_info->balance_pause_req)) { > btrfs_info(fs_info, "balance: paused"); > btrfs_exclop_balance(fs_info, BTRFS_EXCLOP_BALANCE_PAUSED); > }

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (8.9th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 9th percentile — 8.9% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2023-53339: held from 0.002 to 0.002.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.002 · newest: 0.002 · change: 0.000

Affected products

  • Linux — versions ddf7e8984c83aee9122552529f4e77291903f8d9, 72efe5d44821e38540888a5fe3ff3d0faab6acad, b19c98f237cd76981aaded52c258ce93f7daa8cb
  • Linux Kernel — versions 6.5

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2023-53339?
CVE-2023-53339 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux, classified under Reachable Assertion. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2025-09-17.
How severe is CVE-2023-53339?
Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.