CVE-2026-89976 accel/ethosu: fix job completion fence cleanup
A memory corruption vulnerability in the Linux kernel Ethos-U driver allows local attackers to cause denial of service or potentially execute code via improper fence cleanup.
- 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-2026-89976?
CVE-2026-89976 is a memory corruption vulnerability in Linux, published on 16 Sep 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:
accel/ethosu: fix job completion fence cleanup
ethosu_ioctl_submit_job() allocates done_fence before validating buffer handles. Errors after allocation call ethosu_job_err_cleanup(), which frees the job but leaks the uninitialized fence.
A scheduler dependency error also lets ethosu_job_run() return before dma_fence_init(). Normal cleanup then passes a zeroed refcount to dma_fence_put().
Release done_fence in the common cleanup path and use dma_fence_was_initialized() to distinguish initialized fences from raw allocations.
[robh: also fix goto]
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-89976?
How do I fix CVE-2026-89976?
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-2026-89976 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-89976 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2026-89976, GHSA-xw3m-mp44-62gr, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-89976.