CVE-2026-23142 mm/damon/sysfs-scheme: cleanup access_pattern subdirs on scheme dir setup failure

Medium 5.5 Published Updated

A memory leak in the Linux kernel DAMON sysfs interface can cause denial of service by breaking the interface until reboot.

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-2026-23142?

CVE-2026-23142 is a medium-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 14 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:

mm/damon/sysfs-scheme: cleanup access_pattern subdirs on scheme dir setup failure

When a DAMOS-scheme DAMON sysfs directory setup fails after setup of access_pattern/ directory, subdirectories of access_pattern/ directory are not cleaned up. As a result, DAMON sysfs interface is nearly broken until the system reboots, and the memory for the unremoved directory is leaked.

Cleanup the directories under such failures.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-23142?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2026-23142?

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-2026-23142 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-23142 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-23142, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-23142, GHSA-p59g-r9hh-rmr8, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2026-23142, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-23142.

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