Linux Kernel up to 6.6.121/6.12.67/6.18.7/6.19-rc6 IP Protocol gue_udp_recv memory leak

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability has been found in Linux Kernel up to 6.6.121/6.12.67/6.18.7/6.19-rc6 and classified as critical. Impacted is the function gue_udp_recv of the component IP Protocol Handler. This manipulation causes memory leak. This vulnerability is registered as CVE-2026-23095. No exploit is available. The affected component should be upgraded.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.6.121/6.12.67/6.18.7/6.19-rc6. Affected by this vulnerability is the function gue_udp_recv of the component IP Protocol Handler. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a memory leak vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-401. The product does not sufficiently track and release allocated memory after it has been used, which slowly consumes remaining memory. As an impact it is known to affect availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: gue: Fix skb memleak with inner IP protocol 0. syzbot reported skb memleak below. [0] The repro generated a GUE packet with its inner protocol 0. gue_udp_recv() returns -guehdr->proto_ctype for "resubmit" in ip_protocol_deliver_rcu(), but this only works with non-zero protocol number. Let's drop such packets. Note that 0 is a valid number (IPv6 Hop-by-Hop Option). I think it is not practical to encap HOPOPT in GUE, so once someone starts to complain, we could pass down a resubmit flag pointer to distinguish two zeros from the upper layer: * no error * resubmit HOPOPT [0] BUG: memory leak unreferenced object 0xffff888109695a00 (size 240): comm "syz.0.17", pid 6088, jiffies 4294943096 hex dump (first 32 bytes): 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00 40 c2 10 81 88 ff ff 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .@.............. backtrace (crc a84b336f): kmemleak_alloc_recursive include/linux/kmemleak.h:44 [inline] slab_post_alloc_hook mm/slub.c:4958 [inline] slab_alloc_node mm/slub.c:5263 [inline] kmem_cache_alloc_noprof+0x3b4/0x590 mm/slub.c:5270 __build_skb+0x23/0x60 net/core/skbuff.c:474 build_skb+0x20/0x190 net/core/skbuff.c:490 __tun_build_skb drivers/net/tun.c:1541 [inline] tun_build_skb+0x4a1/0xa40 drivers/net/tun.c:1636 tun_get_user+0xc12/0x2030 drivers/net/tun.c:1770 tun_chr_write_iter+0x71/0x120 drivers/net/tun.c:1999 new_sync_write fs/read_write.c:593 [inline] vfs_write+0x45d/0x710 fs/read_write.c:686 ksys_write+0xa7/0x170 fs/read_write.c:738 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:63 [inline] do_syscall_64+0xa4/0xf80 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:94 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f

The advisory is shared at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2026-23095 since 01/13/2026. The exploitation appears to be difficult. Technical details are known, but no exploit is available.

The vulnerability scanner Nessus provides a plugin with the ID 297895 (Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-23095), which helps to determine the existence of the flaw in a target environment.

Upgrading to version 6.6.122, 6.12.68, 6.18.8 or 6.19-rc7 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch f87b9b7a618c82e7465e872eb10e14c803871892/ce569b389a5c78d64788a5ea94560e17fa574b35/5437a279804ced8088cabb945dba88a26d828f8c/9a56796ad258786d3624eef5aefba394fc9bdded is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at git.kernel.org. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

The vulnerability is also documented in the databases at Tenable (297895) and CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2026-0324). Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

Affected

• Debian Linux
• Google Cloud Platform
• Amazon Linux 2
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Ubuntu Linux
• SUSE Linux
• Oracle Linux
• IBM QRadar SIEM
• SUSE openSUSE
• RESF Rocky Linux
• Open Source Linux Kernel

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 6.6.121
• 6.12.0
• 6.12.1
• 6.12.2
• 6.12.3
• 6.12.4
• 6.12.5
• 6.12.6
• 6.12.7
• 6.12.8
• 6.12.9
• 6.12.10
• 6.12.11
• 6.12.12
• 6.12.13
• 6.12.14
• 6.12.15
• 6.12.16
• 6.12.17
• 6.12.18
• 6.12.19
• 6.12.20
• 6.12.21
• 6.12.22
• 6.12.23
• 6.12.24
• 6.12.25
• 6.12.26
• 6.12.27
• 6.12.28
• 6.12.29
• 6.12.30
• 6.12.31
• 6.12.32
• 6.12.33
• 6.12.34
• 6.12.35
• 6.12.36
• 6.12.37
• 6.12.38
• 6.12.39
• 6.12.40
• 6.12.41
• 6.12.42
• 6.12.43
• 6.12.44
• 6.12.45
• 6.12.46
• 6.12.47
• 6.12.48
• 6.12.49
• 6.12.50
• 6.12.51
• 6.12.52
• 6.12.53
• 6.12.54
• 6.12.55
• 6.12.56
• 6.12.57
• 6.12.58
• 6.12.59
• 6.12.60
• 6.12.61
• 6.12.62
• 6.12.63
• 6.12.64
• 6.12.65
• 6.12.66
• 6.12.67
• 6.18.0
• 6.18.1
• 6.18.2
• 6.18.3
• 6.18.4
• 6.18.5
• 6.18.6
• 6.18.7
• 6.19-rc1
• 6.19-rc2
• 6.19-rc3
• 6.19-rc4
• 6.19-rc5
• 6.19-rc6

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

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Entryinfo

Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

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