Improper Check or Handling of Exceptional Conditions in Linux kernel - CVE-2026-23252

Vulnerability details

The vulnerability allows a local user to cause a denial of service.

The vulnerability exists due to improper error handling in the XFS filesystem debugging component when processing internal file descriptor descriptions. A local user can trigger memory allocation failures during descriptor generation to cause a denial of service.

The issue arises because kasprintf calls within the xchk_xfile_*_descr macros may fail when formatting strings larger than 16 bytes, leading to unhandled allocation failures. This can be triggered during XFS filesystem consistency checks. Administrative privileges are not required, but access to XFS debugging interfaces is necessary.

Affected software

How to mitigate CVE-2026-23252

External References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/18e9cf2259b4157fd282b323514375f2f6a59edb
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2d8afee89262762fe0e5547772708c75f320c957
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/60382993a2e18041f88c7969f567f168cd3b4de3

Related Security Bulletins

• Improper Check or Handling of Exceptional Conditions in Linux kernel xfs scrub
• Debian update for linux