CVE-2026-23024 idpf: fix memory leak of flow steer list on rmmod

What is CVE-2026-23024?

CVE-2026-23024 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 31 Jan 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

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

idpf: fix memory leak of flow steer list on rmmod

The flow steering list maintains entries that are added and removed as ethtool creates and deletes flow steering rules. Module removal with active entries causes memory leak as the list is not properly cleaned up.

Prevent this by iterating through the remaining entries in the list and freeing the associated memory during module removal. Add a spinlock (flow_steer_list_lock) to protect the list access from multiple threads.

Weakness: CWE-401

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-23024?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2026-23024?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2026-23024 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-23024 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-23024, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-23024, GHSA-jv8h-wwpc-ccw4, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-23024.