CVE-2026-98509

Source
https://cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-98509
Import Source
https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2026-98509.json
JSON Data
https://api.osv.dev/v1/vulns/CVE-2026-98509
Downstream
Published
2026-10-18T15:17:19Z
Modified
2026-10-20T02:30:26Z
Summary
drm/virtio: fix memory leak of fence event on execbuffer failure
Details

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

drm/virtio: fix memory leak of fence event on execbuffer failure

virtio_gpu_execbuffer_ioctl() reserves a DRM event with drm_event_reserve_init() when VIRTGPU_EXECBUF_RING_IDX selects a ring that userspace has enabled polling for. virtio_gpu_init_submit() does this before the BO handles, the command buffer, the syncobj arrays and the in-fence are processed, so every later error path runs with the event already pending, including plain argument validation failures such as an invalid bo_handle or an in-syncobj that carries no fence.

On those paths, virtio_gpu_cleanup_submit() drops the out-fence without cancelling the event. The fence is freed without ever having been emitted, taking the only driver-side pointer to the event with it. Closing the DRM file does not help. drm_events_release() unlinks pending events but deliberately leaves the freeing to the driver's later drm_send_event(), which never runs for an orphaned event, so the allocation is leaked permanently.

Found when fuzzing the virtio driver with Syzkaller:

BUG: memory leak
unreferenced object 0xffff88802c176e80 (size 96):
comm "syz.1.367", pid 10561, jiffies 4294960122
hex dump (first 32 bytes):
	00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
	c8 6e 17 2c 80 88 ff ff 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  .n.,............
backtrace (crc e1973c6b):
	kmemleak_alloc_recursive include/linux/kmemleak.h:44 [inline]
	slab_post_alloc_hook mm/slub.c:4597 [inline]
	slab_alloc_node mm/slub.c:4917 [inline]
	__kmalloc_cache_noprof+0x49d/0x6f0 mm/slub.c:5485
	_kmalloc_noprof include/linux/slab.h:988 [inline]
	_kzalloc_noprof include/linux/slab.h:1309 [inline]
	virtio_gpu_fence_event_create drivers/gpu/drm/virtio/virtgpu_submit.c:282 [inline]
	virtio_gpu_init_submit drivers/gpu/drm/virtio/virtgpu_submit.c:398 [inline]
	virtio_gpu_execbuffer_ioctl+0xbbf/0x1aa0 drivers/gpu/drm/virtio/virtgpu_submit.c:505
	drm_ioctl_kernel+0x1f4/0x3e0 drivers/gpu/drm/drm_ioctl.c:817
	drm_ioctl+0x5f4/0xc70 drivers/gpu/drm/drm_ioctl.c:914
	vfs_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:51 [inline]
	__do_sys_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:597 [inline]
	__se_sys_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:583 [inline]
	__x64_sys_ioctl+0x18e/0x210 fs/ioctl.c:583
	do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:63 [inline]
	do_syscall_64+0x116/0x800 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:94
	entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f

Fix by cancelling and freeing the DRM event on the execbuffer error path before dropping the fence. Clear the fence's event pointer after cancellation so it does not retain a dangling pointer.

Database specific
{
    "cna_assigner":  "Linux",
    "osv_generated_from":  "https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2026/98xxx/CVE-2026-98509.json"
}
References

Affected packages

Git / git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git

Affected ranges

Type
GIT
Repo
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git
Events
Introduced
cd7f5ca33585918febe5e2f6dc090a21cfa775b0
Fixed
43bfe2b60c149bf6effda25f245a00509061fa15
Fixed
4e333e2336138f4659b1d7a0371c499f80428612
Fixed
8fa78900fd24247277c03dc7b8a2864cb12d4340
Fixed
ae583668f16d41fcc1b54f45848c1b6ac1d6669a
Fixed
b74aad23d99b279bb34d135795f39a6d8ecdc075

Database specific

source
"https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2026-98509.json"

Linux / Kernel

Package

Name
Kernel

Affected ranges

Type
ECOSYSTEM
Events
Introduced
5.16.0
Fixed
6.6.158
Type
ECOSYSTEM
Events
Introduced
6.7.0
Fixed
6.12.112
Type
ECOSYSTEM
Events
Introduced
6.13.0
Fixed
6.18.55
Type
ECOSYSTEM
Events
Introduced
6.19.0
Fixed
7.2.9

Database specific

source
"https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2026-98509.json"