CVE-2026-93208 kasan: fix cache shrink race with CPU hotplug
A race condition in the Linux kernel KASAN module during CPU hotplug can cause memory leaks and kernel warnings, potentially 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-2026-93208?
CVE-2026-93208 is a vulnerability in Linux, published on 24 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:
kasan: fix cache shrink race with CPU hotplug
kasan_quarantine_remove_cache() first invokes per_cpu_remove_cache() on all online CPUs. Each callback moves objects belonging to the cache from cpu_quarantine to the CPU's shrink_qlist, where they can later be freed from task context.
kmem_cache_destroy() invokes the quarantine removal path while holding cpus_read_lock(), but kmem_cache_shrink() does not. The latter can therefore race with CPU offlining as follows:
kmem_cache_shrink() CPU hotplug ------------------- ----------- on_each_cpu() CPU1 moves objects to CPU1's shrink_qlist on_each_cpu() returns CPU1 goes offline kasan_cpu_offline() drains cpu_quarantine leaves shrink_qlist untouched for_each_online_cpu() skips CPU1
The objects left on CPU1's shrink_qlist are not returned to the slab allocator. This may prevent kmem_cache_shrink() from releasing slabs that would otherwise become empty. If CPU1 remains offline, a later kmem_cache_destroy() also skips the list and can report that the cache still contains objects.
An intermittent occurrence was observed with a virtio-9p filesystem. The mount and umount commands both returned 0, but the kernel logged the following during the userspace-triggered teardown:
[ 2994.380134][ T111] BUG 9p-fcall-cache-1 (Tainted: G B ): Objects remaining on __kmem_cache_shutdown() [ 2994.381140][ T111] Object 0xff11000004361118 @offset=4376 [ 2994.381607][ T111] Allocated in p9_fcall_init+0x201/0x400 age=19564 cpu=1 pid=104 [ 2994.382591][ T111] p9_fcall_init+0x201/0x400 [ 2994.382810][ T111] p9_tag_alloc+0x12f/0x700 [ 2994.382982][ T111] p9_client_prepare_req+0x102/0x3e0 [ 2994.383165][ T111] p9_client_rpc+0x1ab/0xa50 [ 2994.383334][ T111] p9_client_getattr_dotl+0xb0/0x1a0 [ 2994.383515][ T111] v9fs_vfs_getattr_dotl+0x115/0x360 [ 2994.383719][ T111] vfs_getattr_nosec+0x22c/0x3a0 [ 2994.383910][ T111] vfs_statx+0xd7/0x170 [ 2994.384062][ T111] vfs_fstatat+0x45/0x80 [ 2994.384215][ T111] __do_sys_newfstatat+0x84/0xe0 [ 2994.384386][ T111] do_syscall_64+0x115/0x6a0 [ 2994.384566][ T111] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f [ 2994.399720][ T111] WARNING: mm/slub.c:1244 at __kmem_cache_shutdown+0x363/0x500, CPU#0: busybox/111 [ 2994.405655][ T111] Call Trace: [ 2994.406325][ T111] kmem_cache_destroy+0x73/0x1b0 [ 2994.406630][ T111] p9_client_destroy+0x271/0x3c0 [ 2994.407210][ T111] v9fs_session_close+0x3c/0x260 [ 2994.407409][ T111] v9fs_kill_super+0x48/0x90 [ 2994.407584][ T111] deactivate_locked_super+0xa3/0x160 [ 2994.407778][ T111] cleanup_mnt+0x1dd/0x3e0
Thus, a successful umount left objects in the 9p fcall cache and prevented the cache from being destroyed cleanly.
Per-CPU shrink_qlist storage exists for every possible CPU, and each list is protected by its own raw spinlock. Iterate over possible CPUs so that a list populated before its CPU went offline is drained as well.
for_each_possible_cpu() can do more work than for_each_online_cpu(), but this change only affects CONFIG_KASAN_GENERIC kernels. The extra work is limited to cache shrink and cache destruction paths and does not affect the normal allocation/free fast path. It adds one raw-spinlock-protected scan of each possible CPU's shrink list. These lists are normally empty; a non-empty list is traversed to remove objects belonging to the cache being shrunk or destroyed.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-93208?
How do I fix CVE-2026-93208?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2026-93208 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-93208 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-93208, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-93208, GHSA-fgp6-x4jf-pff3, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-93208.