# CVE-2026-43381: nouveau/dpcd: return EBUSY for aux xfer if the device is asleep

> A local attacker can trigger a kernel crash in the nouveau driver by accessing DP aux interfaces while the device is runtime suspended.

- **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:** 8 May 2026
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2026-43381, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-43381, GHSA-gwm9-34wj-g7pc, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2026-43381, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2026-43381, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2026-43381, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-43381

## What is CVE-2026-43381?

CVE-2026-43381 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 8 May 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:

nouveau/dpcd: return EBUSY for aux xfer if the device is asleep

If we have runtime suspended, and userspace wants to use /dev/drm_dp_*
then just tell it the device is busy instead of crashing in the GSP
code.

WARNING: CPU: 2 PID: 565741 at drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/nvkm/subdev/gsp/rm/r535/rpc.c:164 r535_gsp_msgq_wait+0x9a/0xb0 [nouveau]
CPU: 2 UID: 0 PID: 565741 Comm: fwupd Not tainted 6.18.10-200.fc43.x86_64 #1 PREEMPT(lazy)
Hardware name: LENOVO 20QTS0PQ00/20QTS0PQ00, BIOS N2OET65W (1.52 ) 08/05/2024
RIP: 0010:r535_gsp_msgq_wait+0x9a/0xb0 [nouveau]

This is a simple fix to get backported. We should probably engineer a
proper power domain solution to wake up devices and keep them awake
while fw updates are happening.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-43381?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2026-43381?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2026-43381 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-43381 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-2026-43381 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-43381 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 8 May 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-2026-43381 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-2026-43381/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-43381/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-43381
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-43381
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-43381

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-43381/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.