{"id":"DEBIAN-CVE-2026-23086","details":"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-\u003ebuffer_* 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]","modified":"2026-09-01T16:06:34.636420763Z","published":"2026-02-04T17:16:19.467Z","upstream":["CVE-2026-23086"],"references":[{"type":"ADVISORY","url":"https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2026-23086"}],"affected":[{"package":{"name":"linux","ecosystem":"Debian:12","purl":"pkg:deb/debian/linux?arch=source&distro=bookworm"},"ranges":[{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"0"},{"fixed":"6.1.162-1"}]}],"versions":["6.1.106-1","6.1.106-2","6.1.106-3","6.1.112-1","6.1.115-1","6.1.119-1","6.1.123-1","6.1.124-1","6.1.128-1","6.1.129-1","6.1.133-1","6.1.135-1","6.1.137-1","6.1.139-1","6.1.140-1","6.1.147-1","6.1.148-1","6.1.153-1","6.1.158-1","6.1.159-1","6.1.27-1","6.1.37-1","6.1.38-1","6.1.38-2","6.1.38-2~bpo11+1","6.1.38-3","6.1.38-4","6.1.38-4~bpo11+1","6.1.52-1","6.1.55-1","6.1.55-1~bpo11+1","6.1.64-1","6.1.66-1","6.1.67-1","6.1.69-1","6.1.69-1~bpo11+1","6.1.76-1","6.1.76-1~bpo11+1","6.1.82-1","6.1.85-1","6.1.90-1","6.1.90-1~bpo11+1","6.1.94-1","6.1.94-1~bpo11+1","6.1.98-1","6.1.99-1"],"ecosystem_specific":{"urgency":"not yet assigned"},"database_specific":{"source":"https://storage.googleapis.com/osv-test-debian-osv/debian-cve-osv/DEBIAN-CVE-2026-23086.json"}},{"package":{"name":"linux","ecosystem":"Debian:13","purl":"pkg:deb/debian/linux?arch=source&distro=trixie"},"ranges":[{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"0"},{"fixed":"6.12.69-1"}]}],"versions":["6.12.38-1","6.12.41-1","6.12.43-1","6.12.43-1~bpo12+1","6.12.48-1","6.12.57-1","6.12.57-1~bpo12+1","6.12.63-1","6.12.63-1~bpo12+1","6.12.69-1~bpo12+1"],"ecosystem_specific":{"urgency":"not yet assigned"},"database_specific":{"source":"https://storage.googleapis.com/osv-test-debian-osv/debian-cve-osv/DEBIAN-CVE-2026-23086.json"}},{"package":{"name":"linux","ecosystem":"Debian:14","purl":"pkg:deb/debian/linux?arch=source&distro=forky"},"ranges":[{"type":"ECOSYSTEM","events":[{"introduced":"0"},{"fixed":"6.18.8-1"}]}],"versions":["6.12.100-1","6.12.101-1","6.12.105-1","6.12.107-1","6.12.38-1","6.12.41-1","6.12.43-1","6.12.43-1~bpo12+1","6.12.48-1","6.12.57-1","6.12.57-1~bpo12+1","6.12.63-1","6.12.63-1~bpo12+1","6.12.69-1","6.12.69-1~bpo12+1","6.12.73-1","6.12.73-1~bpo12+1","6.12.74-1","6.12.74-2","6.12.74-2~bpo12+1","6.12.85-1","6.12.85-1~bpo12+1","6.12.86-1","6.12.86-1~bpo12+1","6.12.88-1","6.12.88-1~bpo12+1","6.12.90-1","6.12.90-1~bpo12+1","6.12.90-2","6.12.90-2~bpo12+1","6.12.94-1","6.12.94-1~bpo12+1","6.12.95-1","6.12.95-1~bpo12+1","6.12.96-1","6.13.10-1~exp1","6.13.11-1~exp1","6.13.2-1~exp1","6.13.3-1~exp1","6.13.4-1~exp1","6.13.5-1~exp1","6.13.6-1~exp1","6.13.7-1~exp1","6.13.8-1~exp1","6.13.9-1~exp1","6.13~rc6-1~exp1","6.13~rc7-1~exp1","6.14.3-1~exp1","6.14.5-1~exp1","6.14.6-1~exp1","6.15-1~exp1","6.15.1-1~exp1","6.15.2-1~exp1","6.15.3-1~exp1","6.15.4-1~exp1","6.15.5-1~exp1","6.15.6-1~exp1","6.15~rc7-1~exp1","6.16-1~exp1","6.16.1-1~exp1","6.16.10-1","6.16.11-1","6.16.12-1","6.16.12-1~bpo13+1","6.16.12-2","6.16.3-1","6.16.3-1~bpo13+1","6.16.5-1","6.16.6-1","6.16.7-1","6.16.8-1","6.16.9-1","6.16~rc7-1~exp1","6.17.10-1","6.17.11-1","6.17.12-1","6.17.13-1","6.17.13-1~bpo13+1","6.17.2-1~exp1","6.17.5-1~exp1","6.17.6-1","6.17.7-1","6.17.7-2","6.17.8-1","6.17.8-1~bpo13+1","6.17.9-1","6.18.1-1~exp1","6.18.2-1~exp1","6.18.3-1","6.18.5-1","6.18.5-1~bpo13+1","6.18~rc4-1~exp1","6.18~rc4-1~exp2","6.18~rc5-1~exp1","6.18~rc6-1~exp1","6.18~rc7-1~exp1"],"ecosystem_specific":{"urgency":"not yet assigned"},"database_specific":{"source":"https://storage.googleapis.com/osv-test-debian-osv/debian-cve-osv/DEBIAN-CVE-2026-23086.json"}}],"schema_version":"1.9.0","severity":[{"type":"CVSS_V3","score":"CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H"}]}