CVE-2026-98514 drm/nouveau: Fix gem reference leak in validate_init()
A local attacker can trigger a memory leak in the nouveau driver, leading to resource exhaustion and 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-2026-98514?
CVE-2026-98514 is a memory corruption vulnerability in Linux, published on 18 Oct 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/nouveau: Fix gem reference leak in validate_init()
On the ttm_bo_reserve() failure and "vma not found" error paths, the loop breaks without adding the looked-up object to any validate list, so the reference taken by drm_gem_object_lookup() is never released; validate_fini() only walks the spliced lists. Drop the reference before breaking out on both paths.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-98514?
How do I fix CVE-2026-98514?
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-2026-98514 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-98514 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as AZL-108852, BELL-CVE-2026-98514, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-98514, GHSA-g33v-35j5-pxgw, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-98514.