Skip to content
Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2026-23086 json

vsock/virtio: cap TX credit to local buffer size

published 2026-02-04 9 mo ago modified 2026-10-19 20 d ago also EUVD-2026-5456

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 6%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

vsock/virtio: cap TX credit to local buffer size

The virtio transports derives its TX credit directly from peer_buf_alloc, which is set from the remote endpoint's SO_VM_SOCKETS_BUFFER_SIZE value.

On the host side this means that the amount of data we are willing to queue for a connection is scaled by a guest-chosen buffer size, rather than the host's own vsock configuration. A malicious guest can advertise a large buffer and read slowly, causing the host to allocate a correspondingly large amount of sk_buff memory. The same thing would happen in the guest with a malicious host, since virtio transports share the same code base.

Introduce a small helper, virtio_transport_tx_buf_size(), that returns min(peer_buf_alloc, buf_alloc), and use it wherever we consume peer_buf_alloc.

This ensures the effective TX window is bounded by both the peer's advertised buffer and our own buf_alloc (already clamped to buffer_max_size via SO_VM_SOCKETS_BUFFER_MAX_SIZE), so a remote peer cannot force the other to queue more data than allowed by its own vsock settings.

On an unpatched Ubuntu 22.04 host (~64 GiB RAM), running a PoC with 32 guest vsock connections advertising 2 GiB each and reading slowly drove Slab/SUnreclaim from ~0.5 GiB to ~57 GiB; the system only recovered after killing the QEMU process. That said, if QEMU memory is limited with cgroups, the maximum memory used will be limited.

With this patch applied:

Before: MemFree: ~61.6 GiB Slab: ~142 MiB SUnreclaim: ~117 MiB

After 32 high-credit connections: MemFree: ~61.5 GiB Slab: ~178 MiB SUnreclaim: ~152 MiB

Only ~35 MiB increase in Slab/SUnreclaim, no host OOM, and the guest remains responsive.

Compatibility with non-virtio transports:

- VMCI uses the AF_VSOCK buffer knobs to size its queue pairs per socket based on the local vsk->buffer_* values; the remote side cannot enlarge those queues beyond what the local endpoint configured.

- Hyper-V's vsock transport uses fixed-size VMBus ring buffers and an MTU bound; there is no peer-controlled credit field comparable to peer_buf_alloc, and the remote endpoint cannot drive in-flight kernel memory above those ring sizes.

- The loopback path reuses virtio_transport_common.c, so it naturally follows the same semantics as the virtio transport.

This change is limited to virtio_transport_common.c and thus affects virtio-vsock, vhost-vsock, and loopback, bringing them in line with the "remote window intersected with local policy" behaviour that VMCI and Hyper-V already effectively have.

[Stefano: small adjustments after changing the previous patch] [Stefano: tweak the commit message]

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.1.162, 6.6.122, 6.12.68, 6.18.8, 6.19
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.162-1
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.69-1
  • linux Debian 14 6.18.8-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-23086

  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-117.117
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1055.58
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1058.61
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1054.60
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1055.56
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1056.62
  • linux-gkeop Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1041.44
  • linux-raspi Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1056.60

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-23086

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.34.1
  • kernel-syms SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.34.1
  • kernel-azure SLE Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.34.1
  • kernel-source SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.34.1
  • kernel-default SLE Workstation Extension 15 SP7, SLE Module for Legacy 15 SP7, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 +2 more 6.4.0-150700.53.34.1
  • kernel-zfcpdump SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.34.1
  • kernel-obs-build SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.34.1
  • kernel-default-base SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.34.1.150700.17.23.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:1081-1SUSE-SU-2026:1078-1SUSE-SU-2026:20873-1SUSE-SU-2026:20838-1SUSE-SU-2026:20931-1SUSE-SU-2026:20845-1

  • kernel-rt openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.27.1
  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.27.1
  • kernel-64kb openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.27.1
  • kernel-syms openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.27.1
  • kernel-azure openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.27.1
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.27.1
  • kernel-source openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.27.1
  • kernel-default openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.27.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:20416-1

  • kernel Azure Linux 3.0 6.6.126.1-1

azure linux advisories AZL-77151

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-23086 updated cvss 6.2

kernel: vsock/virtio: cap TX credit to local buffer size

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    affected: workaround, no fix available “To mitigate this issue, prevent module vsock from being loaded. Please see https://access.redhat.com/solutions/41278 for how to blacklist a kernel module to prevent it from loading automatically.”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

cisa ICSA-26-295-11 updated cvss 6.2

Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518(F)-4 PN/DP MFP

  • Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP (6ES7518-4AX00-1AB0) >= 3.1.7 Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP (6ES7518-4AX00-1AC0) >= 3.1.7 Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518F-4 PN/DP MFP (6ES7518-4FX00-1AB0) >= 3.1.7 Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518F-4 PN/DP MFP (6ES7518-4FX00-1AC0) >= 3.1.7 Siemens SIPLUS S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP (6AG1518-4AX00-4AC0) >= 3.1.7
    affected: mitigation, no fix available

Facts from CISA's republication of the vendor's own advisory (CSAF); the linked advisory is the authoritative source. CISA notification · csaf

cisa ICSA-26-209-04 updated cvss 6.2

Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518(F)-4 PN/DP MFP

  • Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP (6ES7518-4AX00-1AB0) >= 3.1.6 Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP (6ES7518-4AX00-1AC0) >= 3.1.6 Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518F-4 PN/DP MFP (6ES7518-4FX00-1AB0) >= 3.1.6 Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518F-4 PN/DP MFP (6ES7518-4FX00-1AC0) >= 3.1.6 Siemens SIPLUS S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP (6AG1518-4AX00-4AC0) >= 3.1.6
    affected: mitigation, no fix available

Facts from CISA's republication of the vendor's own advisory (CSAF); the linked advisory is the authoritative source. CISA notification · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
4 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.17% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 6% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux
  • Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP
  • Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518F-4 PN/DP MFP
  • Siemens SIPLUS S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-400 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.