Executive brief
A vulnerability in the Linux kernel's VMware graphics driver (vmwgfx) can lead to a memory leak. This occurs when the system incorrectly overwrites tracking information for graphics surfaces, failing to release memory properly. Over time, a local attacker could exploit this to exhaust system memory, potentially causing a system crash or service outage.
Technical details
A memory leak vulnerability (CWE-401) exists in the vmwgfx driver within the Linux kernel's DRM (Direct Rendering Manager) subsystem. The issue is located in 'drivers/gpu/drm/vmwgfx/vmwgfx_kms.c', where the code was overwriting a surface's dirty tracker without checking if it was already allocated. This results in a failure to release previously allocated memory. A local user with access to graphics resources can trigger this leak, potentially leading to a denial-of-service (DoS) via memory exhaustion. The vulnerability has been patched by adding a check to ensure the dirty tracker is only allocated if it is currently NULL.
Affected products
- Linux Linux Kernel 6.16 to 6.18.20, 6.19 to 6.19.10
Timeline
- 2026-03-02: other: Patch authored
- 2026-04-03: disclosed: CVE published
- 2026-04-03: advisory