CVE-2026-45900 crypto: caam - fix netdev memory leak in dpaa2_caam_probe
A memory leak in the Linux kernel's CAAM crypto driver can exhaust system memory during probe failures, leading to 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-2026-45900?
CVE-2026-45900 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 27 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:
crypto: caam - fix netdev memory leak in dpaa2_caam_probe
When commit 0e1a4d427f58 ("crypto: caam: Unembed net_dev structure in dpaa2") converted embedded net_device to dynamically allocated pointers, it added cleanup in dpaa2_dpseci_disable() but missed adding cleanup in dpaa2_dpseci_free() for error paths.
This causes memory leaks when dpaa2_dpseci_dpio_setup() fails during probe due to DPIO devices not being ready yet. The kernel's deferred probe mechanism handles the retry successfully, but the netdevs allocated during the failed probe attempt are never freed, resulting in kmemleak reports showing multiple leaked netdev-related allocations all traced back to dpaa2_caam_probe().
Fix this by preserving the CPU mask of allocated netdevs during setup and using it for cleanup in dpaa2_dpseci_free(). This approach ensures that only the CPUs that actually had netdevs allocated will be cleaned up, avoiding potential issues with CPU hotplug scenarios.
Weakness: CWE-401
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-45900?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2026-45900?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2026-45900 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-45900 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-45900, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-45900, GHSA-4wj9-54w5-mwm9, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-45900.