# CVE-2026-23380: tracing: Fix WARN_ON in tracing_buffers_mmap_close

> A local attacker can trigger a kernel warning and potential instability by using madvise to bypass VM_DONTCOPY during fork in the tracing subsystem.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **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:** Yes
- **Published:** 25 Mar 2026
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2026-23380, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-23380, GHSA-q6xr-q445-2xxh, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-13-CVE-2026-23380, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-23380

## What is CVE-2026-23380?

CVE-2026-23380 is a medium-severity denial of service 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:

tracing: Fix WARN_ON in tracing_buffers_mmap_close

When a process forks, the child process copies the parent's VMAs but the
user_mapped reference count is not incremented. As a result, when both the
parent and child processes exit, tracing_buffers_mmap_close() is called
twice. On the second call, user_mapped is already 0, causing the function to
return -ENODEV and triggering a WARN_ON.

Normally, this isn't an issue as the memory is mapped with VM_DONTCOPY set.
But this is only a hint, and the application can call
madvise(MADVISE_DOFORK) which resets the VM_DONTCOPY flag. When the
application does that, it can trigger this issue on fork.

Fix it by incrementing the user_mapped reference count without re-mapping
the pages in the VMA's open callback.

Weakness: CWE-617 (Reachable Assertion)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-23380?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2026-23380?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2026-23380 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-23380 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-23380 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-23380 is a medium-severity denial of service 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.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-23380 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-23380/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-23380/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-23380
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-23380
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-23380

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-23380/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.