CVE-2026-23322 ipmi: Fix use-after-free and list corruption on sender error

What is CVE-2026-23322?

CVE-2026-23322 is a high-severity use after free vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 25 Mar 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:

ipmi: Fix use-after-free and list corruption on sender error

The analysis from Breno:

When the SMI sender returns an error, smi_work() delivers an error response but then jumps back to restart without cleaning up properly:

1. intf->curr_msg is not cleared, so no new message is pulled 2. newmsg still points to the message, causing sender() to be called again with the same message 3. If sender() fails again, deliver_err_response() is called with the same recv_msg that was already queued for delivery

This causes list_add corruption ("list_add double add") because the recv_msg is added to the user_msgs list twice. Subsequently, the corrupted list leads to use-after-free when the memory is freed and reused, and eventually a NULL pointer dereference when accessing recv_msg->done.

The buggy sequence:

sender() fails -> deliver_err_response(recv_msg) // recv_msg queued for delivery -> goto restart // curr_msg not cleared! sender() fails again (same message!) -> deliver_err_response(recv_msg) // tries to queue same recv_msg -> LIST CORRUPTION

Fix this by freeing the message and setting it to NULL on a send error. Also, always free the newmsg on a send error, otherwise it will leak.

Weakness: CWE-416

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-23322?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2026-23322?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade to the fixed version. These bugs are found with fuzzing and sanitisers and avoided by memory-safe languages. More about Use after free.

Is CVE-2026-23322 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-23322 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-2026-23322, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-23322, GHSA-668m-q5h4-jfjc, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-23322.