Double free in Linux kernel - CVE-2026-80698
Published: August 28, 2026
Vulnerability identifier: #VU146097
CSH Severity: Low
CVSS v4: 6.8 [CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N]
CVE-ID: CVE-2026-80698
CWE-ID: CWE-415
Exploitation vector: Local access
Exploit availability:
No public exploit available
Vulnerability details
The vulnerability allows a local user to cause a denial of service.
The vulnerability exists due to a double free in the idxd wq, engine, and group device setup and cleanup paths when handling device reference release during error handling and cleanup. A local user can trigger affected cleanup paths to cause a denial of service.
The issue occurs when put_device() drops the device reference count to zero and invokes the release callbacks, while the same allocations are also freed explicitly.
Affected software
Linux kernel
How to mitigate CVE-2026-80698
Install security update from vendor's repository.
Linux kernel - update to 7.0 rc3