CVE-2026-23394

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's af_unix component. A race condition exists between the MSG_PEEK operation and the garbage collection process. This can allow a local user to cause the garbage collector to incorrectly purge the receive queue of an alive socket, potentially leading to a denial of service.

This flaw affects AF_UNIX socket file descriptor passing with MSG_PEEK. The race between GC's liveness check and MSG_PEEK refcount bumping can cause GC to incorrectly purge queues of live sockets. This is a regression of a previously fixed issue (commit cbcf01128d0a) that was reintroduced when the GC algorithm was replaced.

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.