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Linux Kernel: Memory Leak in NFC Function Can Cause System Slowdown

CVE-2026-23150
Summary

A memory leak in the Linux kernel's NFC function can cause the system to slow down and potentially run out of memory. This issue affects Linux systems with NFC capabilities. To resolve this issue, Linux kernel developers have fixed the memory leak, so updating to the latest version of the Linux kernel is recommended.

Original title
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nfc: llcp: Fix memleak in nfc_llcp_send_ui_frame(). syzbot reported various memory leaks related to NFC, struct nfc_llcp_sock, ...
Original description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

nfc: llcp: Fix memleak in nfc_llcp_send_ui_frame().

syzbot reported various memory leaks related to NFC, struct
nfc_llcp_sock, sk_buff, nfc_dev, etc. [0]

The leading log hinted that nfc_llcp_send_ui_frame() failed
to allocate skb due to sock_error(sk) being -ENXIO.

ENXIO is set by nfc_llcp_socket_release() when struct
nfc_llcp_local is destroyed by local_cleanup().

The problem is that there is no synchronisation between
nfc_llcp_send_ui_frame() and local_cleanup(), and skb
could be put into local->tx_queue after it was purged in
local_cleanup():

CPU1 CPU2
---- ----
nfc_llcp_send_ui_frame() local_cleanup()
|- do { '
|- pdu = nfc_alloc_send_skb(..., &err)
| .
| |- nfc_llcp_socket_release(local, false, ENXIO);
| |- skb_queue_purge(&local->tx_queue); |
| ' |
|- skb_queue_tail(&local->tx_queue, pdu); |
... |
|- pdu = nfc_alloc_send_skb(..., &err) |
^._________________________________.'

local_cleanup() is called for struct nfc_llcp_local only
after nfc_llcp_remove_local() unlinks it from llcp_devices.

If we hold local->tx_queue.lock then, we can synchronise
the thread and nfc_llcp_send_ui_frame().

Let's do that and check list_empty(&local->list) before
queuing skb to local->tx_queue in nfc_llcp_send_ui_frame().

[0]:
[ 56.074943][ T6096] llcp: nfc_llcp_send_ui_frame: Could not allocate PDU (error=-6)
[ 64.318868][ T5813] kmemleak: 6 new suspected memory leaks (see /sys/kernel/debug/kmemleak)
BUG: memory leak
unreferenced object 0xffff8881272f6800 (size 1024):
comm "syz.0.17", pid 6096, jiffies 4294942766
hex dump (first 32 bytes):
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
27 00 03 40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 '..@............
backtrace (crc da58d84d):
kmemleak_alloc_recursive include/linux/kmemleak.h:44 [inline]
slab_post_alloc_hook mm/slub.c:4979 [inline]
slab_alloc_node mm/slub.c:5284 [inline]
__do_kmalloc_node mm/slub.c:5645 [inline]
__kmalloc_noprof+0x3e3/0x6b0 mm/slub.c:5658
kmalloc_noprof include/linux/slab.h:961 [inline]
sk_prot_alloc+0x11a/0x1b0 net/core/sock.c:2239
sk_alloc+0x36/0x360 net/core/sock.c:2295
nfc_llcp_sock_alloc+0x37/0x130 net/nfc/llcp_sock.c:979
llcp_sock_create+0x71/0xd0 net/nfc/llcp_sock.c:1044
nfc_sock_create+0xc9/0xf0 net/nfc/af_nfc.c:31
__sock_create+0x1a9/0x340 net/socket.c:1605
sock_create net/socket.c:1663 [inline]
__sys_socket_create net/socket.c:1700 [inline]
__sys_socket+0xb9/0x1a0 net/socket.c:1747
__do_sys_socket net/socket.c:1761 [inline]
__se_sys_socket net/socket.c:1759 [inline]
__x64_sys_socket+0x1b/0x30 net/socket.c:1759
do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:63 [inline]
do_syscall_64+0xa4/0xfa0 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:94
entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f

BUG: memory leak
unreferenced object 0xffff88810fbd9800 (size 240):
comm "syz.0.17", pid 6096, jiffies 4294942850
hex dump (first 32 bytes):
68 f0 ff 08 81 88 ff ff 68 f0 ff 08 81 88 ff ff h.......h.......
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 68 2f 27 81 88 ff ff .........h/'....
backtrace (crc 6cc652b1):
kmemleak_alloc_recursive include/linux/kmemleak.h:44 [inline]
slab_post_alloc_hook mm/slub.c:4979 [inline]
slab_alloc_node mm/slub.c:5284 [inline]
kmem_cache_alloc_node_noprof+0x36f/0x5e0 mm/slub.c:5336
__alloc_skb+0x203/0x240 net/core/skbuff.c:660
alloc_skb include/linux/skbuff.h:1383 [inline]
alloc_skb_with_frags+0x69/0x3f0 net/core/sk
---truncated---
Published: 14 Feb 2026 · Updated: 10 Mar 2026 · First seen: 6 Mar 2026