Missing Release of Resource after Effective Lifetime in Linux kernel - CVE-2026-98516

Vulnerability identifier: #VU156817

CSH Severity: Low

CVSS v4: 4.8 [CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N]

CVE-ID: CVE-2026-98516

CWE-ID: CWE-772

Exploitation vector: Local access

Exploit availability: No public exploit available

The vulnerability allows a local user to cause a resource leak that may degrade system availability.

The vulnerability exists due to a missing release of a PCI device reference in the nouveau driver's nv1a_ram_new() function when reading the memory size from the PCI bridge's configuration space. A local user can potentially trigger the affected initialization path to leave the bridge reference unreleased, which may retain resources and degrade system availability.

Linux kernel
Ubuntu
linux-nvidia-tegra (Ubuntu package)
linux-nvidia-tegra-igx (Ubuntu package)
linux-nvidia-tegra-5.15 (Ubuntu package)
linux (Ubuntu package)
linux-gcp (Ubuntu package)
linux-oracle (Ubuntu package)
linux-aws (Ubuntu package)
linux-ibm (Ubuntu package)
linux-hwe-7.0 (Ubuntu package)
linux-oem-7.0 (Ubuntu package)

Install security update from vendor's repository.

Linux kernel - update to 7.0 rc3
linux-nvidia-tegra (Ubuntu package) - update to 5.15.0-1070.72
linux-nvidia-tegra-igx (Ubuntu package) - update to 5.15.0-1059.59
linux-nvidia-tegra-5.15 (Ubuntu package) - update to 5.15.0-1070.72~20.04.1
linux (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-42.42
linux-gcp (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-1016.18
linux-oracle (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-1015.16
linux-aws (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-1016.17
linux-ibm (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-1017.17
linux-hwe-7.0 (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-42.42~24.04.1
linux-oem-7.0 (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-1017.17

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2bda86f1fb2373a2ad8900341d5d6a6d68ce6ddb
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3e0861ebb9ecf0b726ea42123bd579362ec1f977
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/553c86816e99855d6784eebd2588d5d2198c280e
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/67b4411538c8341692548429d43256f25be99f7a
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6d497216c10af3dc9747b399295f385fabbac9e5
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9ffb43369ae51af5d5646b1ef680ab1af0fb4ad9
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ac4f1d28498b9798fc20f91f23a4256032186370
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/add5e0a45e3971df9c65cc7b59c90559a25dc5a9

• Missing Release of Resource after Effective Lifetime in Linux kernel subdev fb driver
• Ubuntu update for linux-oem-7.0
• Ubuntu update for linux, linux-aws, linux-gcp and more
• Ubuntu update for linux-nvidia-tegra, linux-nvidia-tegra-5.15, linux-nvidia-tegra-igx
• Ubuntu update for linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.15 and more