GHSA-p5pc-67g7-qcv2 · Severity: medium — In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: af_unix: Give up GC if...
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: af_unix: Give up GC if MSG_PEEK intervened. Igor Ushakov reported that GC purged the receive queue of an alive socket due to a race with MSG_PEEK with a nice repro. This is the exact same issue previously fixed by commit cbcf01128d0a ("af_unix: fix garbage collect vs MSG_PEEK"). After GC was replaced with the current algorithm, the cited commit removed the locking dance in unix_peek_fds() and reintroduced the same issue. The problem is that MSG_PEEK bumps a file refcount without interacting with GC. Consider an SCC containing sk-A and sk-B, where sk-A is close()d but can be recv()ed via sk-B. The bad thing happens if sk-A is recv()ed with MSG_PEEK from sk-B and sk-B is close()d while GC is checking unix_vertex_dead() for sk-A and sk-B. GC thread User thread --------- ----------- unix_vertex_dead(sk-A) -> true <------. \ `------ recv(sk-B, MSG_PEEK) invalidate !! -> sk-A's file refcount : 1 -> 2 close(sk-B) -> sk-B's file refcount : 2 -> 1 unix_vertex_dead(sk-B) -> true Initially, sk-A's file refcount is 1 by the inflight fd in sk-B recvq. GC thinks sk-A is dead because the file refcount is the same as the number of its inflight fds. However, sk-A's file refcount is bumped silently by MSG_PEEK, which invalidates the previous evaluation. At this moment, sk-B's file refcount is 2; one by the open fd, and one by the inflight fd in sk-A. The subsequent close() releases one refcount by the former. Finally, GC incorrectly concludes that both sk-A and sk-B are dead. One option is to restore the locking dance in unix_peek_fds(), but we can resolve this more elegantly thanks to the new algorithm. The point is that the issue does not occur without the subsequent close() and we actually do not need to synchronise MSG_PEEK with the dead SCC detection. When the issue occurs, close() and GC touch the same file refcount. If GC sees the refcount being decremented by close(), it can just give up garbage-collecting the SCC. Therefore, we only need to signal the race during MSG_PEEK with a proper memory barrier to make it visible to the GC. Let's use seqcount_t to notify GC when MSG_PEEK occurs and let it defer the SCC to the next run. This way no locking is needed on the MSG_PEEK side, and we can avoid imposing a penalty on every MSG_PEEK unnecessarily. Note that we can retry within unix_scc_dead() if MSG_PEEK is detected, but we do not do so to avoid hung task splat from abusive MSG_PEEK calls.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2026-23394 is rated Low Risk (20.5/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.02%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.
Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.
EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).
| # | Date | Old EPSS score | New EPSS score | Delta (New - Old) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2026-03-25 | — | 0.02% | — |
Full EPSS history (1 record total)
CVSS metrics for this CVE.
| Base score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability | Impact | Score source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.7 | 3.1 | MEDIUM |
|
1.0 | 3.6 | [email protected] |
GHSA-p5pc-67g7-qcv2 · Severity: medium — In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: af_unix: Give up GC if...
| vendor | priority | summary | link |
|---|---|---|---|
debian
|
unimportant | CVE-2026-23394 unimportant priority: Debian including 1 source packages (linux), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 3, open 2. | https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2026-23394 |
redhat
|
medium | — | https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-23394 |
suse
|
medium | CVE-2026-23394 severity moderate: SUSE including 25 source package names (cluster-md-kmp-default, dlm-kmp-default, …), 214 product×package rows across 38 product lines (SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP7, SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS, … (38 product lines)): Known Not Affected 214. | https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-23394/ |
ubuntu
|
medium | CVE-2026-23394 medium priority: Ubuntu including 157 source packages (linux, linux-allwinner-5.19, …), 1413 status rows across 9 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, questing, resolute, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 1018, ignored 169, not-affected 89, released 83, needed 29, pending 25. | https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2026-23394 |
| Vendor | Product | Version | Raw CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
| linux | linux_kernel | >= 6.1.141, < 6.2 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | >= 6.6.93, < 6.7 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | >= 6.10.1, < 6.18.23 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | >= 6.19, < 6.19.10 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | 6.10 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:6.10:-:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | 7.0 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:7.0:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | 7.0 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:7.0:rc2:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | 7.0 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:7.0:rc3:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | 7.0 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:7.0:rc4:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | 7.0 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:7.0:rc5:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | 7.0 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:7.0:rc6:*:*:*:*:*:* |
| linux | linux_kernel | 7.0 | cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:7.0:rc7:*:*:*:*:*:* |