CVE-2026-72056 net: ena: clean up XDP TX queues when regular TX setup fails
A resource leak in the Linux kernel ENA driver occurs when regular TX setup fails, potentially leading to denial of service.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-72056?
CVE-2026-72056 is a denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 15 Aug 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:
net: ena: clean up XDP TX queues when regular TX setup fails
create_queues_with_size_backoff() creates XDP TX queues before setting up the regular TX path. If the subsequent allocation or creation of regular TX queues fails, the error handling paths omit the teardown of the XDP TX queues, leading to a resource leak.
Fix this by explicitly destroying the XDP TX queue subset at the two missing failure points.
The bug was first flagged by an experimental analysis tool we are developing for kernel memory-management bugs while analyzing v6.13-rc1. The tool is still under development and is not yet publicly available. Manual inspection confirms that the bug is still present in v7.1-rc7.
An x86_64 allyesconfig build showed no new warnings. As we do not have an ENA device to test with, no runtime testing was able to be performed.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-72056?
How do I fix CVE-2026-72056?
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-2026-72056 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-72056 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-72056, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-72056, GHSA-m3r6-prq6-28vh, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-72056.