CVE-2023-0266: Use after free in SNDRV_CTL_IOCTL_ELEM in Linux Kernel

Affected versions

NVD version ranges (for catalog products). Add the product to your stack with a version and matching uses these.

• debian debian linux10.0
• linux linux kernel4.14 and later · before 4.14.303
• linux linux kernel4.15 and later · before 4.19.270
• linux linux kernel4.20 and later · before 5.4.229
• linux linux kernel5.5 and later · before 5.10.163
• linux linux kernel5.11 and later · before 5.15.88
• linux linux kernel5.16 and later · before 6.1.6

Versions reported by the vendor

Affected version ranges reported by the assigning authority (Google). Independent of NVD's CPE analysis and usually ahead of it.

• Linux Linux Kernel

  • 4.14 and later · before 56b88b50565cd8b946a2d00b0c83927b7ebb055eaffected · git

Package-level exposure

OSV and GitHub Advisory data: ecosystem, package and range. SBOM matching uses this table.

Other highest-scoring records for the same primary product.

• CVE-2026-31431crypto: algif_aead - Revert to operating out-of-placeKEV
  90Now
• CVE-2022-0847A flaw was found in the way the "flags" member of the new pipe buffer structure was lacking proper initialization in copy_page_to_iter_pipe KEV
  89Now
• CVE-2021-22555Heap Out-Of-Bounds Write in Netfilter IP6T_SO_SET_REPLACEKEV
  85Now

Published before and after this one in the same product

• ← EarlierCVE-2022-4139Jan 27, 2023 · An incorrect TLB flush issue was found in the Linux kernel’s GPU i915 kernel driver, potentially leading to random memory corruption or data
  31Monitor
• ← EarlierCVE-2023-0240Jan 30, 2023 · Use after free in io_uring in the Linux Kernel
  31Monitor
• Later →CVE-2023-25012Feb 1, 2023 · The Linux kernel through 6.1.9 has a Use-After-Free in bigben_remove in drivers/hid/hid-bigbenff.c via a crafted USB device because the LED
  18Monitor

Root cause

After a memory region is freed, another reference pointing to it is still used. By then, the same region may have been allocated for different data.

A representative example of this vulnerability class. Not the vendor's source code; it shows the faulty pattern and its fix.

1free(dev->buf);2/* ... another thread is still running ... */3process(dev->buf);

1lock(&dev->lock);2free(dev->buf);3dev->buf = NULL;4unlock(&dev->lock);

Attack context

MITRE CAPEC attack patterns and ATT&CK techniques for this weakness class (CWE). A starting point for detection rules and threat hunting.

MITRE has no CAPEC/ATT&CK mapping for this CWE.