CVE-2026-23199: linux Improper Locking

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-23199 is a medium (CVSS 5.5) Improper Locking vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.10% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 0.9% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 14-02-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 11-05-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: procfs: avoid fetching build ID while holding VMA lock Fix PROCMAP_QUERY to fetch optional build ID only after dropping mmap_lock or per-VMA lock, whichever was used to lock VMA under question, to avoid deadlock reported by syzbot: -> #1 (&mm->mmap_lock){++++}-{4:4}: __might_fault+0xed/0x170 _copy_to_iter+0x118/0x1720 copy_page_to_iter+0x12d/0x1e0 filemap_read+0x720/0x10a0 blkdev_read_iter+0x2b5/0x4e0 vfs_read+0x7f4/0xae0 ksys_read+0x12a/0x250 do_syscall_64+0xcb/0xf80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f -> #0 (&sb->s_type->i_mutex_key#8){++++}-{4:4}: __lock_acquire+0x1509/0x26d0 lock_acquire+0x185/0x340 down_read+0x98/0x490 blkdev_read_iter+0x2a7/0x4e0 __kernel_read+0x39a/0xa90 freader_fetch+0x1d5/0xa80 __build_id_parse.isra.0+0xea/0x6a0 do_procmap_query+0xd75/0x1050 procfs_procmap_ioctl+0x7a/0xb0 __x64_sys_ioctl+0x18e/0x210 do_syscall_64+0xcb/0xf80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f other info that might help us debug this: Possible unsafe locking scenario: CPU0 CPU1 ---- ---- rlock(&mm->mmap_lock); lock(&sb->s_type->i_mutex_key#8); lock(&mm->mmap_lock); rlock(&sb->s_type->i_mutex_key#8); *** DEADLOCK *** This seems to be exacerbated (as we haven't seen these syzbot reports before that) by the recent: 777a8560fd29 ("lib/buildid: use __kernel_read() for sleepable context") To make this safe, we need to grab file refcount while VMA is still locked, but other than that everything is pretty straightforward. Internal build_id_parse() API assumes VMA is passed, but it only needs the underlying file reference, so just add another variant build_id_parse_file() that expects file passed directly. [akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix up kerneldoc]

• CWE-667Improper LockingThe product does not properly acquire or release a lock on a resource, leading to unexpected resource state changes and behaviors.