CVE-2026-23418

Vulnerability

CVE-2026-23418 is a memory leak vulnerability in the Linux kernel's Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) subsystem for Intel Xe graphics (drm/xe/reg_sr. The bug occurs in the register save/restore (reg_sr) code path when the xa_store() function fails to insert an entry into an XArray fails. In such a failure case, the newly allocated entry is not freed, leading to a memory leak [1][2][3].

Exploitation

An attacker with local access to the system and the ability to trigger the vulnerable code path (e.g., by performing certain graphics operations that cause xa_store() to fail) can exploit this issue. No special privileges beyond local user access are required, as the vulnerability is in a kernel driver that can be reached from user space via DRM ioctls. The attack surface is limited to local, and the prerequisite is that the system uses the Intel Xe graphics driver.

Impact

Successful exploitation results in a gradual memory leak, which can eventually lead to system instability or denial of service denial (DoS) due to memory exhaustion. The CVSS v3 score of 5.5 (Medium) reflects the local attack vector and the potential for availability impact.

Mitigation

The fix was introduced in the Linux kernel commit 6bc6fec71ac45f52db609af4e62bdb96b9f5fadb, which frees the allocated entry on the error path using a goto fail_free pattern. Users should apply the latest stable kernel updates to address this vulnerability [1][2][3].