CVE-2026-23081 net: phy: intel-xway: fix OF node refcount leakage

What is CVE-2026-23081?

CVE-2026-23081 is a medium-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 4 Feb 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:

net: phy: intel-xway: fix OF node refcount leakage

Automated review spotted am OF node reference count leakage when checking if the 'leds' child node exists.

Call of_put_node() to correctly maintain the refcount.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-23081?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2026-23081?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade to the fixed version. Memory-safe languages, compiler hardening and fuzzing prevent most new cases. More about Memory corruption.

Is CVE-2026-23081 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-23081 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-2026-23081, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-23081, GHSA-64mr-2w58-753j, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-23081.