CVE-2026-23090 slimbus: core: fix device reference leak on report present

Medium 5.5 Published Updated

A reference leak in the Linux kernel Slimbus driver can lead to resource exhaustion and denial of service.

Exploited in the wild
Not known
Login needed
Any signed-in user
Attackable
Local or same network only
Victim action needed
Not needed
Fix
Available

What is CVE-2026-23090?

CVE-2026-23090 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:

slimbus: core: fix device reference leak on report present

Slimbus devices can be allocated dynamically upon reception of report-present messages.

Make sure to drop the reference taken when looking up already registered devices.

Note that this requires taking an extra reference in case the device has not yet been registered and has to be allocated.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-23090?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2026-23090?

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-2026-23090 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-23090 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-23090, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-23090, GHSA-2rcf-99h2-99hm, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2026-23090, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2026-23090, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-23090.

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