CVE-2026-72311 drm/xe: free madvise VMA array on L2 flush failure
A memory leak in the Linux kernel's Xe GPU driver allows local attackers to exhaust system memory via repeated failed ioctl calls, causing 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-2026-72311?
CVE-2026-72311 is a memory corruption 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:
drm/xe: free madvise VMA array on L2 flush failure
xe_vm_madvise_ioctl() allocates madvise_range.vmas in get_vmas(). After get_vmas() succeeds with at least one VMA, error paths must go through free_vmas so the array is released before the madvise details are destroyed.
The L2 flush validation path added for PAT madvise rejects some SVM/userptr ranges after get_vmas() has succeeded, but jumps directly to madv_fini. This skips kfree(madvise_range.vmas), leaking the VMA array on each failed ioctl.
Jump to free_vmas instead, matching the other validation failure paths after get_vmas() has succeeded.
(cherry picked from commit c3a1c3579b1250060da73507a4acef712974c78a)
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-72311?
How do I fix CVE-2026-72311?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade to the fixed version. Memory-safe languages, compiler hardening and fuzzing prevent most new cases. More about Memory corruption.
Is CVE-2026-72311 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-72311 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2026-72311, GHSA-69mf-3x6r-xpp9, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-72311.