Vulnerability Database

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Total vulnerabilities in the database

CVE-2026-23072 — linux / linux_kernel

Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime

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

l2tp: Fix memleak in l2tp_udp_encap_recv().

syzbot reported memleak of struct l2tp_session, l2tp_tunnel, sock, etc. [0]

The cited commit moved down the validation of the protocol version in l2tp_udp_encap_recv().

The new place requires an extra error handling to avoid the memleak.

Let's call l2tp_session_put() there.

[0]: BUG: memory leak unreferenced object 0xffff88810a290200 (size 512): comm "syz.0.17", pid 6086, jiffies 4294944299 hex dump (first 32 bytes): 7d eb 04 0c 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 }............... 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ backtrace (crc babb6a4f): kmemleak_alloc_recursive include/linux/kmemleak.h:44 [inline] slab_post_alloc_hook mm/slub.c:4958 [inline] slab_alloc_node mm/slub.c:5263 [inline] __do_kmalloc_node mm/slub.c:5656 [inline] __kmalloc_noprof+0x3e0/0x660 mm/slub.c:5669 kmalloc_noprof include/linux/slab.h:961 [inline] kzalloc_noprof include/linux/slab.h:1094 [inline] l2tp_session_create+0x3a/0x3b0 net/l2tp/l2tp_core.c:1778 pppol2tp_connect+0x48b/0x920 net/l2tp/l2tp_ppp.c:755 __sys_connect_file+0x7a/0xb0 net/socket.c:2089 __sys_connect+0xde/0x110 net/socket.c:2108 __do_sys_connect net/socket.c:2114 [inline] __se_sys_connect net/socket.c:2111 [inline] __x64_sys_connect+0x1c/0x30 net/socket.c:2111 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:63 [inline] do_syscall_64+0xa4/0xf80 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:94 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f

  • Published: Feb 4, 2026
  • Updated: Mar 19, 2026
  • CVE: CVE-2026-23072
  • Severity: Medium
  • Exploit:
  • CISA KEV:

CVSS v3:

  • Severity: Medium
  • Score: 5.5
  • AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CWEs:

Frequently Asked Questions

A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.

A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. In practice, risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.

Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.

Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.

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