CVE-2026-23322: ipmi: Fix use-after-free and list corruption on sender error

Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-03-25 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-416

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ipmi: Fix use-after-free and list corruption on sender error The analysis from Breno: When the SMI sender returns an error, smi_work() delivers an error response but then jumps back to restart without cleaning up properly: 1. intf->curr_msg is not cleared, so no new message is pulled 2. newmsg still points to the message, causing sender() to be called again with the same message 3. If sender() fails again, deliver_err_response() is called with the same recv_msg that was already queued for delivery This causes list_add corruption ("list_add double add") because the recv_msg is added to the user_msgs list twice. Subsequently, the corrupted list leads to use-after-free when the memory is freed and reused, and eventually a NULL pointer dereference when accessing recv_msg->done. The buggy sequence: sender() fails -> deliver_err_response(recv_msg) // recv_msg queued for delivery -> goto restart // curr_msg not cleared! sender() fails again (same message!) -> deliver_err_response(recv_msg) // tries to queue same recv_msg -> LIST CORRUPTION Fix this by freeing the message and setting it to NULL on a send error. Also, always free the newmsg on a send error, otherwise it will leak.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 6.18.1 before 6.18.17; from 6.19 before 6.19.7; 6.18, 7.0-rc1, 7.0-rc2, 7.0-rc3, 7.0-rc4, 7.0-rc5 (+2) — fixed in 6.18.17, 6.19.7

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.18.17, 6.19.7. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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