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CVE-2023-53224

kernel: ext4: Fix function prototype mismatch for ext4_feat_ktype

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Severity

Moderate

Red Hat Product Security

4.1

CVSS 3.1

Review impact separately from score.

Published · September 15, 2025

Updated · July 22, 2026

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

ext4: Fix function prototype mismatch for ext4_feat_ktype

With clang's kernel control flow integrity (kCFI, CONFIG_CFI_CLANG), indirect call targets are validated against the expected function pointer prototype to make sure the call target is valid to help mitigate ROP attacks. If they are not identical, there is a failure at run time, which manifests as either a kernel panic or thread getting killed.

ext4_feat_ktype was setting the "release" handler to "kfree", which doesn't have a matching function prototype. Add a simple wrapper with the correct prototype.

This was found as a result of Clang's new -Wcast-function-type-strict flag, which is more sensitive than the simpler -Wcast-function-type, which only checks for type width mismatches.

Note that this code is only reached when ext4 is a loadable module and it is being unloaded:

CFI failure at kobject_put+0xbb/0x1b0 (target: kfree+0x0/0x180; expected type: 0x7c4aa698) ... RIP: 0010:kobject_put+0xbb/0x1b0 ... Call Trace: <TASK> ext4_exit_sysfs+0x14/0x60 [ext4] cleanup_module+0x67/0xedb [ext4]

CVSS score applicability

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.

Mitigation

No mitigation is specified in collected source.

CVSS / CWE

CVSS 3.1 · 4.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CWE-628 · Function Call with Incorrectly Specified Arguments