Linux Kernel up to 6.12.80/6.18.21/6.19.11 queue_entity memory corruption

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.12.80/6.18.21/6.19.11. It has been classified as critical. This vulnerability affects the function queue_entity. This manipulation causes memory corruption. This vulnerability is handled as CVE-2026-43323. There is not any exploit available. Upgrading the affected component is recommended.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability has been found in Linux Kernel up to 6.12.80/6.18.21/6.19.11 and classified as critical. Affected by this vulnerability is the function queue_entity. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a memory corruption vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-119. The product performs operations on a memory buffer, but it can read from or write to a memory location that is outside of the intended boundary of the buffer. As an impact it is known to affect confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sched/fair: Fix zero_vruntime tracking fix John reported that stress-ng-yield could make his machine unhappy and managed to bisect it to commit b3d99f43c72b ("sched/fair: Fix zero_vruntime tracking"). The combination of yield and that commit was specific enough to hypothesize the following scenario: Suppose we have 2 runnable tasks, both doing yield. Then one will be eligible and one will not be, because the average position must be in between these two entities. Therefore, the runnable task will be eligible, and be promoted a full slice (all the tasks do is yield after all). This causes it to jump over the other task and now the other task is eligible and current is no longer. So we schedule. Since we are runnable, there is no {de,en}queue. All we have is the __{en,de}queue_entity() from {put_prev,set_next}_task(). But per the fingered commit, those two no longer move zero_vruntime. All that moves zero_vruntime are tick and full {de,en}queue. This means, that if the two tasks playing leapfrog can reach the critical speed to reach the overflow point inside one tick's worth of time, we're up a creek. Additionally, when multiple cgroups are involved, there is no guarantee the tick will in fact hit every cgroup in a timely manner. Statistically speaking it will, but that same statistics does not rule out the possibility of one cgroup not getting a tick for a significant amount of time -- however unlikely. Therefore, just like with the yield() case, force an update at the end of every slice. This ensures the update is never more than a single slice behind and the whole thing is within 2 lag bounds as per the comment on entity_key().

The advisory is shared at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2026-43323 since 05/01/2026. The exploitation appears to be easy. Technical details are known, but no exploit is available. The price for an exploit might be around USD $5k-$25k at the moment (estimation calculated on 07/27/2026).

Upgrading to version 6.12.81, 6.18.22 or 6.19.12 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch c089147074ed96ff4330739a0559394c19a3dfc8/87573883c30f1a8555ff720836bb6ea231058539/fb61ffb3fb30a161eb5404c27fc7635e275beafd/1319ea57529e131822bab56bf417c8edc2db9ae8 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 vulnerability database at CERT Bund (WID-SEC-2026-1454). If you want to get the best quality for vulnerability data then you always have to consider VulDB.

Affected

• Google Container-Optimized OS
• Debian Linux
• Amazon Linux 2
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Ubuntu Linux
• SUSE Linux
• Oracle Linux
• SUSE openSUSE
• RESF Rocky Linux
• Red Hat OpenShift
• Microsoft Azure Linux
• Open Source Linux Kernel
• Proxmox Virtual Environment

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 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
• 6.12.68
• 6.12.69
• 6.12.70
• 6.12.71
• 6.12.72
• 6.12.73
• 6.12.74
• 6.12.75
• 6.12.76
• 6.12.77
• 6.12.78
• 6.12.79
• 6.12.80
• 6.18.0
• 6.18.1
• 6.18.2
• 6.18.3
• 6.18.4
• 6.18.5
• 6.18.6
• 6.18.7
• 6.18.8
• 6.18.9
• 6.18.10
• 6.18.11
• 6.18.12
• 6.18.13
• 6.18.14
• 6.18.15
• 6.18.16
• 6.18.17
• 6.18.18
• 6.18.19
• 6.18.20
• 6.18.21
• 6.19.0
• 6.19.1
• 6.19.2
• 6.19.3
• 6.19.4
• 6.19.5
• 6.19.6
• 6.19.7
• 6.19.8
• 6.19.9
• 6.19.10
• 6.19.11

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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CVSSv4info

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Exploitinginfo

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Sourcesinfo

Entryinfo

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