CVE-2026-23086: Software Security Vulnerability Vulnerability

{
  "schema_version" : "1.4.0",
  "id" : "GHSA-45gq-hr3j-jmrq",
  "modified" : "2026-10-15T03:35:14Z",
  "published" : "2026-02-04T18:30:43Z",
  "aliases" : [ "CVE-2026-23086" ],
  "details" : "In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:\n\nvsock/virtio: cap TX credit to local buffer size\n\nThe virtio transports derives its TX credit directly from peer_buf_alloc,\nwhich is set from the remote endpoint's SO_VM_SOCKETS_BUFFER_SIZE value.\n\nOn the host side this means that the amount of data we are willing to\nqueue for a connection is scaled by a guest-chosen buffer size, rather\nthan the host's own vsock configuration. A malicious guest can advertise\na large buffer and read slowly, causing the host to allocate a\ncorrespondingly large amount of sk_buff memory.\nThe same thing would happen in the guest with a malicious host, since\nvirtio transports share the same code base.\n\nIntroduce a small helper, virtio_transport_tx_buf_size(), that\nreturns min(peer_buf_alloc, buf_alloc), and use it wherever we consume\npeer_buf_alloc.\n\nThis ensures the effective TX window is bounded by both the peer's\nadvertised buffer and our own buf_alloc (already clamped to\nbuffer_max_size via SO_VM_SOCKETS_BUFFER_MAX_SIZE), so a remote peer\ncannot force the other to queue more data than allowed by its own\nvsock settings.\n\nOn an unpatched Ubuntu 22.04 host (~64 GiB RAM), running a PoC with\n32 guest vsock connections advertising 2 GiB each and reading slowly\ndrove Slab/SUnreclaim from ~0.5 GiB to ~57 GiB; the system only\nrecovered after killing the QEMU process. That said, if QEMU memory is\nlimited with cgroups, the maximum memory used will be limited.\n\nWith this patch applied:\n\n  Before:\n    MemFree:        ~61.6 GiB\n    Slab:           ~142 MiB\n    SUnreclaim:     ~117 MiB\n\n  After 32 high-credit connections:\n    MemFree:        ~61.5 GiB\n    Slab:           ~178 MiB\n    SUnreclaim:     ~152 MiB\n\nOnly ~35 MiB increase in Slab/SUnreclaim, no host OOM, and the guest\nremains responsive.\n\nCompatibility with non-virtio transports:\n\n  - VMCI uses the AF_VSOCK buffer knobs to size its queue pairs per\n    socket based on the local vsk->buffer_* values; the remote side\n    cannot enlarge those queues beyond what the local endpoint\n    configured.\n\n  - Hyper-V's vsock transport uses fixed-size VMBus ring buffers and\n    an MTU bound; there is no peer-controlled credit field comparable\n    to peer_buf_alloc, and the remote endpoint cannot drive in-flight\n    kernel memory above those ring sizes.\n\n  - The loopback path reuses virtio_transport_common.c, so it\n    naturally follows the same semantics as the virtio transport.\n\nThis change is limited to virtio_transport_common.c and thus affects\nvirtio-vsock, vhost-vsock, and loopback, bringing them in line with the\n\"remote window intersected with local policy\" behaviour that VMCI and\nHyper-V already effectively have.\n\n[Stefano: small adjustments after changing the previous patch]\n[Stefano: tweak the commit message]",
  "severity" : [ {
    "type" : "CVSS_V3",
    "score" : "CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H"
  } ],
  "affected" : [ ],
  "references" : [ {
    "type" : "ADVISORY",
    "url" : "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-23086"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-019113.html"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-457936.html"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/84ef86aa7120449828d1e0ce438c499014839711"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8ee784fdf006cbe8739cfa093f54d326cbf54037"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c0e42fb0e054c2b2ec4ee80f48ccd256ae0227ce"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d9d5f222558b42f6277eafaaa6080966faf37676"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fef7110ae5617555c792a2bb4d27878d84583adf"
  } ],
  "database_specific" : {
    "cwe_ids" : [ "CWE-400" ],
    "severity" : "MODERATE",
    "github_reviewed" : false,
    "github_reviewed_at" : null,
    "nvd_published_at" : "2026-02-04T17:16:19Z"
  }
}