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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2026-23127 json

perf: Fix refcount warning on event->mmap_count increment

published 2026-02-14 8 mo ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2026-5908

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.1%
EPSS 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 1%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

perf: Fix refcount warning on event->mmap_count increment

When calling refcount_inc(&event->mmap_count) inside perf_mmap_rb(), the following warning is triggered:

refcount_t: addition on 0; use-after-free. WARNING: lib/refcount.c:25

PoC:

struct perf_event_attr attr = {0}; int fd = syscall(__NR_perf_event_open, &attr, 0, -1, -1, 0); mmap(NULL, 0x3000, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE, MAP_SHARED, fd, 0); int victim = syscall(__NR_perf_event_open, &attr, 0, -1, fd, PERF_FLAG_FD_OUTPUT); mmap(NULL, 0x3000, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE, MAP_SHARED, victim, 0);

This occurs when creating a group member event with the flag PERF_FLAG_FD_OUTPUT. The group leader should be mmap-ed and then mmap-ing the event triggers the warning.

Since the event has copied the output_event in perf_event_set_output(), event->rb is set. As a result, perf_mmap_rb() calls refcount_inc(&event->mmap_count) when event->mmap_count = 0.

Disallow the case when event->mmap_count = 0. This also prevents two events from updating the same user_page.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.18.8, 6.19
  • linux Debian 14 6.18.8-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-23127

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-2026-23127 updated cvss 6.1

kernel: Linux kernel: Privilege escalation or denial of service in perf subsystem

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • 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
    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

Exploit prediction

0.12% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 1% 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

Classification

Technology feeds

References

Sources

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