Missing release of memory after effective lifetime in Linux kernel - CVE-2026-23258
Published: March 20, 2026
Vulnerability identifier: #VU124190
CSH Severity: Low
CVSS v4.0: CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:L/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/U:Clear
CVE-ID: CVE-2026-23258
CWE-ID: CWE-401
Exploitation vector: Local access
Exploit availability:
No public exploit available
Vendor: Linux Foundation
Affected software:
Linux kernel
Linux kernel
Detailed vulnerability description
The vulnerability allows a local user to cause a memory leak.
The vulnerability exists due to improper memory management in the net: liquidio component when initializing network devices. A local user can trigger a failure during queue setup to cause a memory leak.
The issue occurs because the netdev pointer is not initialized before calling netif_set_real_num_rx_queues() and netif_set_real_num_tx_queues(), leading to failure in freeing the allocated netdev on error paths.
How to mitigate CVE-2026-23258
Install security update from vendor's repository.
Sources
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1d4590fde856cb94bd9a46e795c29d8288c238fc
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/926ede0c85e1e57c97d64d9612455267d597bb2c
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a0e57c0b68c9e6f9a8fd7c1167861a5a730eb2f4
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/be109646cdaecab262f6276303b1763468c94378
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c0ed6c77ec34050971fd0df2a94dfdea66d09331
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c81a8515fb8c8fb5d0dbc21f48337494bf1d60df
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d028147ae06407cb355245db1774793600670169