CVE-2026-43090: Linux kernel · xfrm: fix refcount leak in xfrm_migrate_policy_find
Affects Linux kernelSource GCVE Database
Not known to be exploited.
Data as of 11 Nov 2026, 23:24 UTC
Rated by Threat Radar · No CVSS score from NVD or the CNA
Thin evidence
One scorer or none- 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.
Exploitation evidence
Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 6 May 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: 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 11 Nov 2026.
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: xfrm: fix refcount leak in xfrm_migrate_policy_find syzkaller reported a memory leak in xfrm_policy_alloc: BUG: memory leak unreferenced object 0xffff888114d79000 (size 1024): comm "syz.1.17", pid 931 ... xfrm_policy_alloc+0xb3/0x4b0 net/xfrm/xfrm_policy.c:432 The root cause is a double call to xfrm_pol_hold_rcu() in xfrm_migrate_policy_find(). The lookup function already returns a policy with held reference, making the second call redundant. Remove the redundant xfrm_pol_hold_rcu() call to fix the refcount imbalance and prevent the memory leak. Found by Linux Verification Center (linuxtesting.org) with Syzkaller.
References
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/21e235a36cfb6d145cefb10728f12f5dc5412f54 (opens in a new tab)
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/836ee1b0426ea3db31531e9581cc32f513d24e32 (opens in a new tab)
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/70c2a89a3bc207c3bfbf6f21bb439809e0a4a27a (opens in a new tab)
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/83317cce60a032c49480dcdabe146435bd689d03 (opens in a new tab)