CVE-2026-90129

virtio_balloon: quiesce balloon work before device shutdown

CVE-2026-90129 is fixed in 20 products on 1 platform, first by DEBIAN-CVE-2026-90129, released September 23, 2026. It is not reported as exploited. Patch Radar priority: High.

High
CVSS
n/a
important
Exploitation
None reported
No vendor assessment
CISA KEV
Not listed
Not in the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog
EPSS
0.0021
10th percentile

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: virtio_balloon: quiesce balloon work before device shutdown Commit 8bd2fa086a04 ("virtio: break and reset virtio devices on device_shutdown()") added a generic virtio bus .shutdown handler that breaks and resets every virtio device during device_shutdown(), i.e. on reboot and kexec. virtio_balloon provides no .shutdown of its own, so that generic path runs while the balloon's asynchronous work is still armed. Once the device has been broken, virtqueue_add_inbuf() in virtballoon_free_page_report() returns -EIO and trips its WARN_ON_ONCE(). On a kernel booted with panic_on_warn that turns an ordinary reboot, for example a kexec based upgrade, into a fatal panic in the middle of device_shutdown(), so the machine never reaches the new kernel. Relaxing that single WARN_ON_ONCE() would only hide the symptom: the inflate/deflate and OOM paths do not warn, they call wait_event(vb->acked, ...) and would instead block forever on a broken queue that can no longer complete. The device has to be quiesced, not just kept quiet. Add a .shutdown handler that quiesces the balloon via the shared virtballoon_quiesce() helper while the device is still alive, and only then breaks and resets it via virtio_device_shutdown(). Unlike virtballoon_remove() the balloon workqueue is not destroyed, as shutdown does not free the device and cancel_work_sync() together with stop_update already prevent any further work from being queued.

Where it's fixed

ProductFixed inFixReleased
Linux
bpftool6.18 · amzn 2023 1:6.18.54-121.166.amzn2023 ALAS2023-2026-3192 Nov 7, 2026
bpftool6.18-debuginfo · amzn 2023 1:6.18.54-121.166.amzn2023 ALAS2023-2026-3192 Nov 7, 2026
kernel-livepatch-6.18.54-121.166 · amzn 2023 1:1.0-0.amzn2023 ALAS2023-2026-3192 Nov 7, 2026
kernel6.18 · amzn 2023 1:6.18.54-121.166.amzn2023 ALAS2023-2026-3192 Nov 7, 2026
kernel6.18-debuginfo · amzn 2023 1:6.18.54-121.166.amzn2023 ALAS2023-2026-3192 Nov 7, 2026
kernel6.18-debuginfo-common-aarch64 · amzn 2023 1:6.18.54-121.166.amzn2023 ALAS2023-2026-3192 Nov 7, 2026
kernel6.18-debuginfo-common-x86_64 · amzn 2023 1:6.18.54-121.166.amzn2023 ALAS2023-2026-3192 Nov 7, 2026
kernel6.18-devel · amzn 2023 1:6.18.54-121.166.amzn2023 ALAS2023-2026-3192 Nov 7, 2026
kernel6.18-headers · amzn 2023 1:6.18.54-121.166.amzn2023 ALAS2023-2026-3192 Nov 7, 2026
kernel6.18-modules-extra · amzn 2023 1:6.18.54-121.166.amzn2023 ALAS2023-2026-3192 Nov 7, 2026
kernel6.18-modules-extra-common · amzn 2023 1:6.18.54-121.166.amzn2023 ALAS2023-2026-3192 Nov 7, 2026
kernel6.18-tools · amzn 2023 1:6.18.54-121.166.amzn2023 ALAS2023-2026-3192 Nov 7, 2026
kernel6.18-tools-debuginfo · amzn 2023 1:6.18.54-121.166.amzn2023 ALAS2023-2026-3192 Nov 7, 2026
kernel6.18-tools-devel · amzn 2023 1:6.18.54-121.166.amzn2023 ALAS2023-2026-3192 Nov 7, 2026
linux · Debian 14 7.2.6-1 DEBIAN-CVE-2026-90129 Sep 23, 2026
microvm-kernel6.18 · amzn 2023 1:6.18.54-121.166.amzn2023 ALAS2023-2026-3192 Nov 7, 2026
perf6.18 · amzn 2023 1:6.18.54-121.166.amzn2023 ALAS2023-2026-3192 Nov 7, 2026
perf6.18-debuginfo · amzn 2023 1:6.18.54-121.166.amzn2023 ALAS2023-2026-3192 Nov 7, 2026
python3-perf6.18 · amzn 2023 1:6.18.54-121.166.amzn2023 ALAS2023-2026-3192 Nov 7, 2026
python3-perf6.18-debuginfo · amzn 2023 1:6.18.54-121.166.amzn2023 ALAS2023-2026-3192 Nov 7, 2026

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