VulnerabilityPublished 25 Mar 2026Updated 8 Oct 2026

CVE-2026-23369: Linux kernel · i2c: i801: Revert "i2c: i801: replace acpi_lock with I2C bus lock

Affects Linux kernelSource GCVE Database

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.5 Medium · fixed in 6.8.0-1061.64~22.04.1 : update Linux kernel when convenient.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 17:16 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

5.5Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 2% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 6.8.0-1061.64~22.04.1, 6.8.0-1063.71~22.04.1, 6.8.0-1062.69~22.04.1 +30

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: High

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable component is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities. Either: the attacker exploits the vulnerability by accessing the target system locally (e.g., keyboard, console), or remotely (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., tricking a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 25 Mar 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Upgrade to a fixed release listed under Affected software.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Ubuntu 25.10linux`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux?arch=source&distro=questing`Other threats	Affected 6.14.0-15.15 – 6.17.0-40.40 20 affected builds	Fixed in–
Ubuntu 25.10linux-aws`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-aws?arch=source&distro=questing`Other threats	Affected 6.14.0-1005.5 – 6.17.0-1019.19 17 affected builds	Fixed in–
Ubuntu 25.10linux-azure`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-azure?arch=source&distro=questing`Other threats	Affected 6.14.0-1004.4 – 6.17.0-1020.20 16 affected builds	Fixed in–
Ubuntu 25.10linux-azure-fde`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-azure-fde?arch=source&distro=questing`Other threats	Affected 6.17.0-1003.3 – 6.17.0-1017.17 10 affected builds	Fixed in–
Ubuntu 25.10linux-gcp`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-gcp?arch=source&distro=questing`Other threats	Affected 6.14.0-1006.6 – 6.17.0-1020.22 17 affected builds	Fixed in–
Ubuntu 25.10linux-oracle`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-oracle?arch=source&distro=questing`Other threats	Affected 6.14.0-1005.5 – 6.17.0-1018.18 16 affected builds	Fixed in–

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

A patch is available and has been released by Ubuntu in updated Linux kernel packages. Users should apply the kernel updates as per Ubuntu Security Notices USN-8567-1 and USN-8574-1 and reboot the system to apply the fix. Due to an ABI change in the kernel update, recompilation and reinstallation of third-party kernel modules may be required. No additional mitigations are indicated by the vendor advisory.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: i2c: i801: Revert "i2c: i801: replace acpi_lock with I2C bus lock" This reverts commit f707d6b9e7c18f669adfdb443906d46cfbaaa0c1. Under rare circumstances, multiple udev threads can collect i801 device info on boot and walk i801_acpi_io_handler somewhat concurrently. The first will note the area is reserved by acpi to prevent further touches. This ultimately causes the area to be deregistered. The second will enter i801_acpi_io_handler after the area is unregistered but before a check can be made that the area is unregistered. i2c_lock_bus relies on the now unregistered area containing lock_ops to lock the bus. The end result is a kernel panic on boot with the following backtrace; [ 14.971872] ioatdma 0000:09:00.2: enabling device (0100 -> 0102) [ 14.971873] BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000000 [ 14.971880] #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode [ 14.971884] #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page [ 14.971887] PGD 0 P4D 0 [ 14.971894] Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP PTI [ 14.971900] CPU: 5 PID: 956 Comm: systemd-udevd Not tainted 5.14.0-611.5.1.el9_7.x86_64 #1 [ 14.971905] Hardware name: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX BIOS 1.20.10.SV91 01/30/2023 [ 14.971908] RIP: 0010:i801_acpi_io_handler+0x2d/0xb0 [i2c_i801] [ 14.971929] Code: 00 00 49 8b 40 20 41 57 41 56 4d 8b b8 30 04 00 00 49 89 ce 41 55 41 89 d5 41 54 49 89 f4 be 02 00 00 00 55 4c 89 c5 53 89 fb <48> 8b 00 4c 89 c7 e8 18 61 54 e9 80 bd 80 04 00 00 00 75 09 4c 3b [ 14.971933] RSP: 0018:ffffbaa841483838 EFLAGS: 00010282 [ 14.971938] RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: ffff9685e01ba568 [ 14.971941] RDX: 0000000000000008 RSI: 0000000000000002 RDI: 0000000000000000 [ 14.971944] RBP: ffff9685ca22f028 R08: ffff9685ca22f028 R09: ffff9685ca22f028 [ 14.971948] R10: 000000000000000b R11: 0000000000000580 R12: 0000000000000580 [ 14.971951] R13: 0000000000000008 R14: ffff9685e01ba568 R15: ffff9685c222f000 [ 14.971954] FS: 00007f8287c0ab40(0000) GS:ffff96a47f940000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [ 14.971959] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [ 14.971963] CR2: 0000000000000000 CR3: 0000000168090001 CR4: 00000000003706f0 [ 14.971966] DR0: 0000000000000000 DR1: 0000000000000000 DR2: 0000000000000000 [ 14.971968] DR3: 0000000000000000 DR6: 00000000fffe0ff0 DR7: 0000000000000400 [ 14.971972] Call Trace: [ 14.971977] <TASK> [ 14.971981] ? show_trace_log_lvl+0x1c4/0x2df [ 14.971994] ? show_trace_log_lvl+0x1c4/0x2df [ 14.972003] ? acpi_ev_address_space_dispatch+0x16e/0x3c0 [ 14.972014] ? __die_body.cold+0x8/0xd [ 14.972021] ? page_fault_oops+0x132/0x170 [ 14.972028] ? exc_page_fault+0x61/0x150 [ 14.972036] ? asm_exc_page_fault+0x22/0x30 [ 14.972045] ? i801_acpi_io_handler+0x2d/0xb0 [i2c_i801] [ 14.972061] acpi_ev_address_space_dispatch+0x16e/0x3c0 [ 14.972069] ? __pfx_i801_acpi_io_handler+0x10/0x10 [i2c_i801] [ 14.972085] acpi_ex_access_region+0x5b/0xd0 [ 14.972093] acpi_ex_field_datum_io+0x73/0x2e0 [ 14.972100] acpi_ex_read_data_from_field+0x8e/0x230 [ 14.972106] acpi_ex_resolve_node_to_value+0x23d/0x310 [ 14.972114] acpi_ds_evaluate_name_path+0xad/0x110 [ 14.972121] acpi_ds_exec_end_op+0x321/0x510 [ 14.972127] acpi_ps_parse_loop+0xf7/0x680 [ 14.972136] acpi_ps_parse_aml+0x17a/0x3d0 [ 14.972143] acpi_ps_execute_method+0x137/0x270 [ 14.972150] acpi_ns_evaluate+0x1f4/0x2e0 [ 14.972158] acpi_evaluate_object+0x134/0x2f0 [ 14.972164] acpi_evaluate_integer+0x50/0xe0 [ 14.972173] ? vsnprintf+0x24b/0x570 [ 14.972181] acpi_ac_get_state.part.0+0x23/0x70 [ 14.972189] get_ac_property+0x4e/0x60 [ 14.972195] power_supply_show_property+0x90/0x1f0 [ 14.972205] add_prop_uevent+0x29/0x90 [ 14.972213] power_supply_uevent+0x109/0x1d0 [ 14.972222] dev_uevent+0x10e/0x2f0 [ 14.972228] uevent_show+0x8e/0x100 [ 14.972236] dev_attr_show+0x19 ---truncated---

Impact

The vulnerability causes a kernel panic during system boot, leading to denial of service by crashing the system. There is no indication of confidentiality or integrity impact. The CVSS score of 5.5 (medium severity) reflects the local attack vector with low complexity and no user interaction required, resulting in system availability disruption.

Summary

The Linux kernel vulnerability CVE-2026-23369 involves the i2c: i801 driver where a reverted commit replaced acpi_lock with the I2C bus lock. Concurrent execution of multiple udev threads collecting i801 device information on boot can cause a race condition. The first thread marks an ACPI reserved area to prevent further access and deregisters it, while a second thread accesses the now unregistered area before a check occurs. This leads to i2c_lock_bus attempting to use lock_ops from a NULL pointer, resulting in a kernel panic with a NULL pointer dereference. The vulnerability affects multiple Linux kernel versions prior to 6.8.0 and its variants. The issue has been fixed by reverting the problematic commit, and updated kernel packages are available from Ubuntu advisories USN-8567-1 and USN-8574-1.

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 1 Aug 2026, 06:30 UTC

Technical details

References

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